


Julie and the Phantom (Singular)

by SquirrelNo2



Series: Instrument of Chaos [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Gen, transported to alternate universe really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26591002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquirrelNo2/pseuds/SquirrelNo2
Summary: Julie and the band have started to find a kind of normal, now that they're free of Caleb's stamp. Naturally, this couldn't last.Julie wakes up one morning to find that Reggie is suddenly the only ghost in her band, and nobody but Julie and Reggie even remembers seeing Alex and Luke perform with them. At first, they think it's just a matter of getting the guys back or breaking some kind of spell - they beat Caleb, so they can do this too.The more they search for answers, though, the less they like them.
Relationships: Flynn & Julie Molina & Reggie & Willie, Julie Molina & Reggie Peters, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Instrument of Chaos [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953958
Comments: 574
Kudos: 583
Collections: Julie and the Phantoms





	1. If I'm the Last Standing

**Author's Note:**

> ...I think the last time I finished and published a fanfiction was 2012. Definitely during the height of weird fandom Tumblr. I'm old enough that I'm teaching the people this show is targeted toward. I absolutely do not know what I'm doing here or why this was the fic that brought me back to posting on AO3.  
> Anyway, enjoy this lighthearted romp through an alternate universe that will rapidly turn into a rumination on the nature of death and ghosthood, and I apologize in advance for any ethical quandaries that may arise in the future. I was gonna put that in the tags but honestly, I'm not sure how to tag for that. Warning, may make you want your favorite characters to die? That doesn't feel great.  
> I make no promises about an update schedule, because I know myself, but also I have things to do so I'm trying to push this one out of my brain so I can get back to my other ridiculously ambitious writing projects. Hopefully this one won't spiral into a 150k monstrosity like the last time I tried to write something to get it out of my brain, but if it looks like it will I'll warn you all. Given how quickly I pushed this first chapter out, and the fact that this fic was mostly brainstormed this morning at work, I anticipate a new chapter tomorrow or Wednesday.  
> Also, for what it's worth, this has not been beta read but it should be free of typos at least? Maybe not free of, like, plot pitfalls or the occasional shaky characterization but I'm choosing to trust myself today.

Everything was normal when Julie got up that morning. Her dad, Carlos, and Reggie were all downstairs; Reggie was watching Julie’s family eat and prepare for the day, offering commentary as though today would be the day they finally heard him. When he saw Julie, he grinned and joined her as she got a quick breakfast together.

“Morning!” he said cheerfully.

She smiled at him. Catching Carlos’ eye from behind her dad’s back, she jerked her head at their dad. Carlos caught on and started to ask their dad about what he’d been working on, leaving Julie free to actually talk to Reggie.

“Having fun following my dad around again?”

“I like Ray,” Reggie said, only mildly chastised. Julie hid her smile in a bite of toast. It was sweet, how much the guys liked her family. Definitely made her life easier in some ways. “Anyway, the others went out somewhere and left me behind, so I thought I’d hang out here!”

Julie frowned. That wasn’t like them. Sure, they weren’t always glued at the hip, but usually they told each other where they were going.

“Where’d they disappear to?” she asked, keeping one eye on her dad and Carlos.

Reggie shrugged. Julie wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a flash of nervousness on his face.

“I figured Alex went to see Willie,” he said, and Julie nodded. He’d been stealing odd moments to see his maybe-probably-a-boyfriend (he refused to admit to any labels, at least in front of Julie, and she’d decided not to press) since neither of them wanted to raise Caleb’s ire any more than they already had. “I don’t know where Luke went, though.”

Julie looked up at Reggie, and this time he couldn’t cover up his worry fast enough.

“You don’t think… it couldn’t be Caleb again, right?” she asked. Maybe it was a big conclusion to jump to, but she’d almost _lost_ the guys just a few weeks ago. From the look on Reggie’s face, it had been an option he thought of, too.

“I guess,” he said.

“He wants the whole band, though,” Julie said, as much for herself as for Reggie. “Who’d leave you behind?” She nudged him playfully, and it turned into a little bit of a standing-up lean-slash-cuddle situation. Such were the hazards of being friends with touch-starved ghosts who suddenly were able to touch you. She hugged him around the waist, then let go as her dad finally tore himself away from his conversation with Carlos.

“ _Mija_ , you ready for school?” he asked. Julie hastily finished her breakfast as Reggie poofed out. Normally, she was strongly against the guys coming to school, but this time she hoped he’d meet her there.

It was probably nothing. Alex was with Willie, and Luke was wandering clubs somewhere in the city.

Still, she spent the whole ride to school uneasy.

Julie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Reggie waiting by her locker. He still looked preoccupied, but at least he was wandering around peering at people’s phones like usual. He joined Julie at her locker, grinning as she got her phone out.

“That kid over there writes really good fanfictions,” he said. “Not sure what the show is, but the characters seem very compelling.”

“I am so glad I can see you,” Julie said. “If you were spying on _my_ phone, we’d have issues.”

“Boundaries,” Reggie said, nodding sagely. Julie shook her head fondly.

“I suppose I should be glad that’s the word you three latched onto, and not ‘woke’ or something,” she muttered.

“What does that mean, anyway? Willie didn’t actually tell Alex.”

Julie eyed the dead white boy next to her and considered his clueless, well-intentioned personality.

“That’s gonna take a _long_ conversation,” she said. “Maybe later. When we find the others.”

“Hey, Julie!” Flynn nearly stepped into Reggie, who poofed to Julie’s other side just in time. Julie sighed in relief. Flynn obviously hadn’t seen either of the missing ghosts, but she’d probably have a few ideas or at least be able to talk Julie down from her worst-case scenarios.

“Please tell me you’re just doing the phone thing you do so nobody thinks it’s weird when you talk to Reggie,” Flynn said quietly.

“Yeah,” Julie said. She paused. That was a _weird_ thing Flynn just said.

“How’d you know I was talking to Reggie?”

“Wait, Flynn, can you see me now?” Reggie asked, delighted. He immediately started doing a little dance, and Julie had to look away to keep from laughing. Flynn didn’t seem to register him, though.

“Do you have any other ghost friends you fake talking to over the phone?” Flynn asked. “Also, hey Reggie!” He waved, looking crestfallen.

“Yeah?” Julie said. “Like Luke? And Alex?” Reggie nudged her.

“Reggie says hi, too,” Julie added.

“Who are Luke and Alex?” Flynn said. Julie and Reggie stared at each other.

“Julie?” Flynn said.

“Flynn, _please_ tell me you’re just trying to tell some kind of messed-up joke,” Julie said. “You know them! Luke helped me write that song for you!”

“So did I,” Reggie muttered.

“Didn’t Reggie do that?” Flynn asked. “That weird country-ish thing?”

“Thank you! Wait, what?”

“No, Flynn – Alex is the drummer, and Luke plays guitar, and you kept telling me not to make eye contact with Luke when we sang ‘Great’ but I did it anyway?” Julie wasn’t even going to _touch_ the concept that “Flying Solo” had somehow been country-ish.

“Ooh, when were you two talking about _Luke_?” Reggie asked.

“Reggie!” Julie snapped.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, I – Some things are easier to think about than others, right now.”

That was something Julie couldn’t argue with.

“Julie,” Flynn said quietly. “The only ghost I ever saw with you was Reggie. Bass player, right? Cute white boy, not always sure what’s going on, cried when we told him about Star Wars?”

“What do you mean, _you_ told me about Star Wars?” Reggie murmured.

“But you don’t know the rest of Sunset Curve?” Julie said.

Flynn opened her mouth, looking even more confused. Then the bell rang.

“We gotta get to class,” Flynn said, but she hesitated. “Do you… I could say you threw up and need to go home?”

“You believe me?” Julie asked.

Flynn shrugged.

“Julie, I already had to decide ghosts were real, and you have a magical music connection with one of them, and we’ve established that I’m pretty sure your mom’s calling the shots up there in heaven or wherever. I’d have to be a terrible friend not to at least give you a chance to figure out… whatever this is.”

Julie hugged her tightly.

“I love you,” she said into Flynn’s shoulder.

“Sunset Curve was Reggie’s band, right?” Flynn asked as Julie pulled away.

“Yeah?”

Flynn looked uncharacteristically nervous.

“Maybe… maybe step one is Google,” she said. “Just to know what you’re walking into. It’s what I did after you told me about Reggie.”

“That’s really not reassuring, Flynn,” Julie said.

“Yeah, also, I don’t want to read about how I died again,” Reggie said.

“Go tell the nurse you’re sick,” Flynn said. “I’ll talk to the teachers, ok?”

Alone in the hallway, Julie and Reggie looked at each other.

“This is really weird,” Julie said, knowing as she said it that weird didn’t begin to cover it.

“Do you think _anybody_ remembers them?” Reggie asked. They started walking to the nurse’s office.

“I don’t know,” Julie said. “But Sunset Curve existed, right? So the guys must have been around to be in the band.”

“But I want them _here_ ,” Reggie protested. Then he froze, sneaking a guilty glance at Julie. She smiled up at him, trying to look brave. He’d known Alex and Luke for years. They’d _died_ together. Julie had to hold it together to support Reggie.

“We’ve got each other,” Reggie said, surprising her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and in the empty hallway she leaned into it. “Bandmates. We’ve got this.”

“Yeah,” Julie said. “Totally.”

She was pretty sure neither one of them really believed that, but lying made them feel better.

Her dad was worried when the school told him she’d been sick, but he didn’t press when she asked to be left alone in her room.

“He really is a good dad,” Reggie said as he sat next to Julie on her bed.

“Yeah,” she said. She made a face. “Too bad I’ll probably have to sneak out again if we want to figure this out. I’ve already done enough crazy things the past month.”

“Have you?” Reggie asked. “I mean – Flynn said the song you sang for her was country. And that you told me about Star Wars, when I _know_ I learned about it at the Hollywood Ghost Club. Does Ray even remember you sneaking out to perform? Or the times you missed class?”

The situation sat in Julie’s mind like a big, gaping hole.

How much of the past month had happened as she remembered it? How much had happened at all?

“Do you think we’re just… Julie and the Phantom?” Reggie asked.

Julie took a deep breath and pulled out her phone.

“Let’s find out,” she said. She looked up at him. “Unless you want to start with the guys. Sunset Curve?”

He looked as nervous about this as she felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “We have to find out eventually, right? How else can we get them back?”

Julie held her breath and waited for the search page to load. Her hand was shaking. She set her phone down on the bed between them as soon as she pulled up the 1995 article she remembered from the last time she’d researched the band.

“Up-and-coming local band Sunset Curve lost their bassist to food poisoning, right before their band was due to play at the Orpheum,” Reggie read aloud. He lifted his gaze, and he and Julie stared at each other in horrified silence.

“Just you,” she said quietly. “Luke… Alex. They’re alive somewhere.”

“They’re adults,” Reggie said. “If we got them back – they wouldn’t…”

Julie silently reached for him, and the two friends clung to each other. It was still fairly early in the morning, the sun coming in bright yellow streaks through her window, and she had never felt so exhausted in her life.


	2. Life Would Be Real Low

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reggie most definitely is not having a breakdown. He's a mature kind-of-an-adult.

Sitting in a pile of sad musician was really tempting. But Julie, being a being of infinite wisdom and leadership, eventually sat up, and Reggie had no choice but to pull away as well. After all, Julie was still _younger_ than him, by a little. And without Alex or Luke, Reggie was the only ghost left to look out for her.

Reggie was _not cut out_ for this.

_Just keep it together, Reginald. Long enough to give Julie something to do, and then you can go break down somewhere._

“Ok,” Julie said. “So, does anybody else remember Alex and Luke…”

“Dying,” Reggie finished helpfully. “They died. Like me. Except not here, because I guess I died alone.”

He was doing a terrific job keeping it together.

“You’ve got me,” Julie said, and Reggie remembered saying that earlier when he was sure it was just some kind of weird thing Caleb was trying to do to them. He’d been positive it could be fixed with the power of love, like last time.

But there wasn’t anything to _fix_. Alex and Luke were alive, had been for twenty-five years. If anything, Reggie was the one who needed fixing, except then Julie wouldn’t have anybody in her band. She’d have to start Double Trouble with Flynn for real, and while Reggie thought that would actually be pretty cool he was also sure that they’d have already started the band if it was something they thought would work out.

Why _hadn’t_ they started Double Trouble?

“Reggie?”

He looked up at Julie.

“Maybe we should look for clues?” he said to cover for his distraction, and as he said it he realised it was probably one of his better ideas. “I mean, people don’t just come back to life for no reason.”

He _would_ have said people didn’t just come back to life at all, but apparently that was wrong.

“Let’s start in the studio,” Julie said. She sighed. “It’s probably the only place that will be _easy_ for me to go investigate.”

Normally Reggie would poof out, but waiting in an empty studio didn’t sound like a good time. He followed Julie down the stairs. Ray was working elsewhere in the house, so they didn’t have to make any excuses or explain why Julie was suddenly feeling well enough to wander. Reggie wondered if Ray was the type of dad who was cool about his kids getting sick, and didn’t expect them to be on death’s door the whole day. He seemed like it.

Julie hesitated outside the studio. Reggie couldn’t blame her. He was the only person she’d worked with here who was still around.

Oh, god, he was the only person Julie had left to make music with.

What if the thing that happened to Alex and Luke happened to him? Would he remember Julie? Reggie was almost positive Alex and Luke didn’t, since if they did they probably would have shown up at her door before even considering how weird that would be.

Reggie considered bringing up Double Trouble to Julie as a musical back-up plan, but also that seemed like maybe it wouldn’t go over so well. He could read the room _sometimes_.

He realised he was imagining comebacks to the things Alex and Luke might say.

“Ready?” Julie asked.

“Probably not,” Reggie said. “How about you?”

She shook her head. One hand was on the door handle, but she didn’t move. Reggie put his hand on hers and together, they opened the door.

It looked the same as it had that morning, when Reggie had left to hang out with Ray and Carlos. As Reggie looked around, he realised that some things were missing – had been since that morning. Music for songs they were working on, notebooks and clothes and things the others had been messing with lately. Worst of all, Alex’s drumset and Luke’s guitar were nowhere to be seen.

“Were their things gone this morning?” Julie asked timidly, standing in the space where Alex’s kit usually sat.

“I… I didn’t realise. I think so.”

What sort of friend _was_ Reggie, anyway, that he didn’t notice that? Drums were kind of hard to miss, except, apparently, when they were gone.

His legs stopped wanting to work and he sat down hard, right where he was on the floor. Julie joined him a minute later, offering a hand. He took it and squeezed, and she snuggled in close. It was _really_ nice that Julie was so good about hugs and cuddling now that they could touch. Reggie mostly only got touched by the guys, even back when they were alive, but now they were gone it was nice to still have her.

He felt kind of guilty, needing her support constantly.

“Alex?”

Reggie flailed in surprise, sending Julie scooting away with a confused look on her face. When he looked up, he saw Willie, standing in the studio looking around.

“Willie!” Reggie was up and hugging him before he had time to consider that maybe that was weird. Willie was practically family, it was fine. Probably.

“Hey, Reggie,” Willie said. He sounded a little uncomfortable, but he did pat Reggie on the back, so that was nice.

“Reggie?” Julie stood up, and she looked at him and Willie warily. “What are you doing?”

“This is Willie!”

“Don’t think she can see me,” Willie said helpfully, just before Julie said the same thing.

“Ohhh,” Reggie said. “Right. I guess that makes sense. Hey, Willie, this is Julie. Julie, this is Willie!” He waved his arms around Willie to approximate his shape and place in space.

“Nice to meet you,” Julie said. “What are you doing here?” She kept looking back and forth between Reggie and the spot where Willie stood, like she was expecting Willie to pop into view at any second.

“I was looking for Alex,” Willie said. Reggie relayed this information to Julie, then gasped.

“You remember Alex?”

“He remembers Alex?” Julie and Reggie paused, looking at each other and trying to decide if speaking in unison was weird. Reggie shrugged.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Willie said. He kept watching Julie warily.

“Nobody else does,” Reggie said. “He wants to know why he wouldn’t remember Alex,” he added to Julie, who nodded.

“We woke up this morning and it’s like Alex and Luke never died,” she said. “News articles, everybody’s memories…”

Willie looked at Reggie, who nodded.

“That’s messed up,” Willie said with a nervous laugh. “But the three of us remember them?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said. He wanted to say something else, but he wasn’t sure what it would be.

“Willie knows Caleb, right?” Julie said after a moment of silence. “Ask him – you can hear me. Sorry, Willie. Do you know if he could have done this?”

Willie shrugged, looking almost as lost as Reggie felt.

“He’s never done something like this before,” he said helplessly. “I don’t know if he could. Memories, those are… I mean, he can mess with souls, but I don’t know if he can do minds.”

“He controlled our bodies,” Reggie said. “The night we played the Orpheum.”

Willie coughed awkwardly.

“Reggie, we’re ghosts,” he said. “We don’t… _have_ bodies.”

“Oh.” Reggie looked down. Luke or Alex would be so much better at this. Reggie was comic relief for a _reason_. It wasn’t like he didn’t know people thought he was funny.

It was when people started needing him to step up that things got shaky.

“Reggie?” Julie said expectantly. “What did he say?”

“Right!” Reggie repeated everything he and Willie had talked about in a single breath. He felt winded at the end, though maybe that was just because he expected to. Either that or ghosts breathed, which was weird to think about.

“Great,” Julie said, in a tone that told Reggie she did not, actually, think things were great. “At best, everybody’s memories have been messed with. Alex and Luke are probably forty years old and alive somewhere. We’re lucky Flynn didn’t think I was crazy!”

“We can’t get them back, can we?” Reggie said. “I mean. If we’re in another universe, we can go home, but if things just… _changed_ somehow. We can’t make them die.”

Julie sat heavily on the couch, staring at Reggie in horror. Reggie realised that what he just said was the exact opposite of keeping it together for Julie’s sake.

“I – I have to go,” he said quickly. He poofed away before Willie or Julie could say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...maybe I'm just projecting hard on Reggie today, but sometimes you just gotta spend a bad day thinking about any random thing that crosses your mind and then run away from your problems when you realize you are not actually that good at being supportive of your friends in said situations.  
> Anyway apparently I write him with a similar ambiguous/undiagnosed neurodivergence to myself, so like. That's nice. Probably I will write none of these boys as neurotypical, which is equal parts characterisation and the fact that I'm actually not sure how neurotypicals think. (Is my Julie neurotypical? Who knows. I'm gonna say probably not.)  
> Further adventures with Willie to come! Probably tomorrow but if I write fast I might weaken and post tonight. We shall see. I didn't think I was going to get this chapter done so fast, either, so.


	3. Tripping on the Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willie just wanted to see his boyfriend? Not get involved in a memory-erasing, life-restoring ghost conspiracy? Also he's not a therapist and he would like everyone to remember that.

Willie had been hoping for a nice hug or even a kiss, maybe spend some time showing off his moves to Alex. Assuming Caleb didn’t call him back, he might have stuck around to listen to the band play.

He’d gotten the hug, at least, though Reggie was possibly the last person he’d expected to get it from.

Now he was standing awkwardly in a studio with a lifer who knew he was there in spite of his invisibility, staring at the space where Reggie had been a second ago.

“Reggie!” the girl – Julie – called uselessly. She pressed her hands to her mouth, and Willie considered poofing out when he realised she was crying.

“Willie? Are you still there?” she asked. He sighed. He wasn’t going to leave Alex’s friend alone like this. He picked up a pen lying on the table and waved it to show he was there.

“Can you look for Reggie?” she asked. “I’ll check my house, but it’s not like I can teleport. I know he goes to the beach sometimes, and the guys visit the Orpheum when they’re upset, too.”

Willie wiggled the pen in a way he hoped looked like a nod. From the watery smile Julie gave the pen, she got his message.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m gonna check the house.”

She paused on her way out, pressing her forehead to the wide wooden door. Willie left before he could see or hear anything private.

Willie had a feeling the Orpheum was more Luke’s place to freak out – he was more the type to dwell on could-have-beens, from what Willie knew of the band. So he tried the beach first. Sure enough, Reggie was sitting on a log, staring at the people hanging out on the sand.

“You guys always say Alex is the emotional one,” Willie said, sitting next to him. “You know, it’s really weird trying to talk to somebody who can’t even tell if you’re still there.”

Reggie buried his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said, or at least that was what Willie guessed he said going off sound and context. His voice was _thoroughly_ muffled. Reggie lifted his head, still not meeting Willie’s gaze. “I was trying to be strong, you know? Not make Julie have to take care of me. Alex and Luke are her friends, too.”

Reggie shrugged.

“I thought if I was going to keep breaking down, I’d better do it somewhere she couldn’t see.”

Willie _really_ didn’t want to play friendship counsellor for his boyfriend’s friends. Especially since he didn’t even know Julie.

Still, they clearly needed help, and it wasn’t like anybody else could do it.

“Except now she’s just going to feel bad that you’re not with her,” Willie pointed out. “I mean, you’re the last one left. Maybe you can disappear somewhere nobody can see you and cry, but everybody Julie knows is going to wonder what’s up, and it’s not like she can explain.”

Reggie finally looked at Willie, eyes wide.

“I’m being a really bad friend, aren’t I?”

Willie shrugged.

“I’d probably have gone on a skateboarding bender and gotten myself double run over if I were you,” he said. “Actually, it’s still on the table. I’m mostly holding it together because Alex would be pretty mad at me if I let his bandmates implode or something.”

Reggie smiled weakly.

“It’s weird,” he said. “There’s our Alex and Luke. And then there’s supposed to be a couple of adults out there somewhere, with lives. Maybe even families. I mean, what if Luke’s got a kid?”

Willie could not even begin to imagine that.

“I should be happy for them,” Reggie said. “I really am being the worst friend ever right now.”

“Hey,” Willie said. “Bad friends don’t miss each other as much as you miss Alex and Luke. Bad friends don’t worry about if they’re being selfish because they want their friends with them. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, Reggie, it would be pretty cool not to have died alone. I get why that’s something you don’t want to lose.”

“Thanks, man,” Reggie said, wiping his eyes. “How – how are you doing?”

“Like I said,” Willie said. “Mostly trying to keep it together. If it really is Caleb who did this…”

His voice failed him. He looked down.

 _That would be my fault_.

When he looked up at Reggie, the other ghost was watching him with eyes that were a little too knowing. Willie resisted the urge to pout. Wasn’t Reggie supposed to be the oblivious one? Where did he get off looking like he knew what Willie was thinking?

“Let’s get back to Julie,” he said, hoping that would distract him. He’d found mentioning Julie was a pretty good distraction for any of the three ghosts in the band. “Figure out what we’re doing next.”

“You’re going to help us?” Reggie asked. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I do,” Willie said. “Come on.”

The instant they got back to the studio, Julie barrelled into Reggie, hugging him tightly. Willie looked away, chest tightening a little. It wasn’t like he needed some teenaged lifer to give him a hug. It was just that the only two people who’d hugged him in recent memory were Alex and, today, Reggie.

He kind of envied the band their easy touch.

“Don’t _do that_ ,” Julie said, loud enough Willie could hear her clearly even though her face was buried in Reggie’s chest. Reggie hugged her back just as tightly.

“I’m sorry, Julie,” he said earnestly. “I thought it would be bad if you saw me get upset.”

“You’re so stupid!” Julie said, pulling back and shoving him lightly.

Reggie hunched his shoulders sheepishly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m really, super sorry, Julie.”

“They’re your best friends,” Julie said. “I get it.”

“They’re yours, too,” Reggie said. He gripped her shoulder, which ended up turning into another hug. Willie felt like this was probably not a conversation he needed to be involved in.

“Hey, Reggie?” he said quickly. Reggie pulled back from Julie enough to look at him.

“Yeah? Uh, it’s Willie,” he told Julie. Julie took a step back, too, directing her gaze to where Willie was standing. It was a little unnerving how good she seemed to be at guessing where he was, though if she was used to seeing other people do it with the Phantoms maybe that made sense.

“I’m gonna go see what I can figure out from Caleb,” Willie said. “If he still tried to recruit you, if he remembers Alex and Luke.”

“Come back soon?” Julie said as soon as Reggie had relayed this. “We can figure it out together, right?”

Willie wasn’t sure what he wanted to say – it felt a little weird to take orders, or even suggestions, from a sixteen-year-old lifer – but then he got a good look at Julie. Her face was still tearstained, and though she and Reggie weren’t hugging anymore she had one hand curled around the bottom of his jacket in a death grip.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re in this together.”

Reggie grinned, delighted, as he told Julie what Willie had said. Julie’s face lit up, too, when he was done.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Got nothing left to lose,” Willie said. It was meant as a joke, but it came out bitter. At least it would probably sound better out of Reggie’s mouth.

He left before he could find out.

Since Caleb hadn’t called him, Willie hung back, watching him direct rehearsal. He figured that if Caleb really had done something, he’d probably be more smug than usual. Willie didn’t see anything like that, but Caleb eventually saw him.

“William?” he said, walking over as the dancers ran through a complicated lift sequence. “Aren’t you usually wandering the Strip about now? Skateboarding through unsuspecting tourists?”

Willie tried not to think about how he’d met Alex. Something in his face must have given Caleb a clue, because he raised an eyebrow.

“Did you make a new friend, William? A ghost I might want to meet?”

“No,” Willie said, wondering how he’d ever thought Caleb’s interest in ghosts he met could have been an _innocent_ thing. He’d known what Caleb did, and yet he’d trusted him anyway. “No new ghosts.”

It wasn’t even a lie. From the disappointment on Caleb’s face, he could tell.

“Then to what _do_ I owe the pleasure?” he asked.

Willie swallowed.

“Just… curious,” he said. “About what you’re working on.”

“William, if you wanted a sneak preview, all you had to do was ask,” Caleb said. “You’re part of the club, after all.”

The smile Caleb gave him was his usual, unsettling, ‘I own you and we both know it’ smirk. There wasn’t any extra threat in his words, and Willie smiled in relief. Caleb didn’t remember Willie had disobeyed him, which meant he didn’t remember Alex’s band.

“Thanks,” he said. “This is… all you’ve been working on?”

Caleb eyed him thoughtfully. Willie tried to look like he was just his normal Caleb-level of terrified.

“I’m always on the lookout for a new project,” he said finally. “Did you have something you think I might be interested in?”

If Willie told him no, Caleb would know he was hiding something. If he gave Caleb a hint, something small and misleading, maybe Caleb would assume Willie was trying to get him to play favourites, get more time to himself or something.

“Maybe,” Willie said. “It might be nothing. I just want to make sure I’m not wasting your time.”

“Always so considerate,” Caleb said. “Well, stick around. It’ll be a good show tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok first of all what was I thinking writing a fic where three characters stand around talking a lot and all their names end in "ie." Why did I do that.  
> I'm not sure I'm happy with my Willie characterisation, but the boy is largely a vehicle for exposition in this season anyway. If they're not gonna give me backstory or explicit characterisation I am well within my rights to make assumptions.  
> Up next, the conversation Willie escaped, followed by the dream team you never knew you needed. That one's probably going to take a while, because it's very hard to write a conversation where nobody can fully communicate with everybody else in the room. Have you ever tried to write a game of telephone? Yeah.  
> Last thing, I do think my official update schedule is going to be one chapter approximately every day, but I also know my teaching schedule will probably interfere - let's say one chapter per day, except Friday and Saturday, during which I'll probably only have one chapter for you since I will be busy doing work that does not let me daydream while I'm doing it.


	4. Lean on Someone Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie and Reggie have some deep-rooted fears of losing people and everybody is in for the most unnecessarily complicated conversation of their life. Flynn cannot believe she has custody of the brain cell today.

“I hope he’s ok,” Reggie said nervously. He tugged at the hem of his shirt, and Julie realised she was still holding on to his jacket. She let go, swinging her arms awkwardly for something to do.

“Willie left?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “I know he’s been alone with Caleb before – a _lot_ , I guess. But I feel bad letting him go to the Hollywood Ghost Club alone.”

“I know what you mean,” Julie said. She looked up at Reggie. They should probably talk about… everything, really. But she didn’t want to be the first one to admit she had no idea what to do.

“I really am sorry I left,” Reggie said.

“You said that,” Julie said. “You also said why. Look, Reggie…”

“I’m not doing it again,” Reggie said. “I swear.” He bounced on his toes once, twice, then folded his arms around himself. “The others are just… better at this than me.”

“They’re better at it than me, too,” Julie said. “I mean, all three of you dealt with dying surprisingly well.”

“We did have twenty-five years to get it down,” Reggie said. Julie laughed. Only once, but it was nice to remember she could still do that.

“I was so scared after the Orpheum,” Julie admitted quietly. “And before it, really. I didn’t want to lose you guys.” Her eyes were blurring with tears, and she wiped them on her sweatshirt sleeve.

“Hey…” Reggie’s eyes were wide and terrified, but he still gingerly patted her on the shoulder.

“I lost music once already,” Julie said. “I lost my mom. Now Luke and Alex are gone. And I know I’ve still got you, but if you leave me?” Now she couldn’t really see Reggie through the tears. She squeaked when he seized her in another tight hug.

“Me neither,” he said. Julie was pretty sure he was crying, too. “I mean – you know what I mean, right?”

Julie laughed wetly, then sniffled.

“Yeah,” she said. She leaned into him. “How do you think – the other you handled it?”

Reggie froze. Julie pulled back, worried that she’d really hurt him with that question, but his arms tightened around her.

“You don’t have to answer,” Julie said. “It’s just… you guys are kind of a package.”

“Yeah,” Reggie said slowly. “But before we died, we would have said Bobby was part of that package, too. I guess if I died alone, I wouldn’t feel sad that the others weren’t there.”

Right. Because the others were alive. And forty-two years old.

“I really don’t want to be alone,” Julie murmured through her tears. Reggie’s hands clenched, fingers digging into her back for a second.

“Me neither,” he said. Julie knew he meant being a ghost, and the band, but that wasn’t all she’d been thinking of.

When Reggie had left earlier, Julie had paused to talk to her mom. She couldn’t have forgotten Alex and Luke, after all. Julie had been waiting for a sign ever since.

Julie wasn’t sure if it was coming.

“What made you come back?” she asked hopefully. If he’d had some kind of epiphany, seen something that reminded him of her…

“Willie’s actually pretty good at pep talks,” Reggie said. “Though I guess he is dating Alex, and that guy needs a lot of pep talks some days.”

That made sense. Julie tried not to be disappointed. It meant that Willie had listened to her, and helped them out, and they could count on him. It was _good_ , she told herself. She drew in a breath, willing her tears to slow down.

Julie risked a glance at Reggie. He tried to grin at her, and Julie did him the favour of pretending it was convincing. She smiled back shakily, though her skin felt brittle and cracked under her drying tears.

“When we see the others again,” he said. “Maybe we don’t tell them we spent half an hour crying on each other?”

“Alex cried for twenty-five years,” Julie said through the lump in her throat. “We’re just trying to catch up. Luke’s the one who should be embarrassed, how long has he ever cried at once?”

Reggie seemed to actually think about that one, but before he could come up with an answer – a shame, really, since Julie was now curious to see if he had one – somebody knocked on the door to the studio.

“Jules? Did you come out here?”

It was Flynn.

“Is school over already?” Julie looked outside, and the sun was lower than she’d thought. They _really_ ate up a lot of time freaking out, and they still weren’t any closer to figuring this all out. Scrubbing at the tears on her face, she called out to her best friend.

“We’re here, Flynn!”

“Good, because I did not want to have to track you down,” Flynn said before she’d even made it inside. “And I definitely didn’t want to explain to your dad that you’d gone off somewhere else even though you were sick, because I may be good at covering for you, but I’m not that good – Jules.” Her face fell as she got a good look at Julie. Julie tried to smile at her best friend.

“This is a really big thing, isn’t it?” Flynn asked. “Those other ghosts, you really miss them?”

“They’re part of the band,” Julie said helplessly. It didn’t really capture anything, but it was the kind of thing Luke would say, and that felt a little bit like a comfort. Anyway, if anybody would get it, it would be Flynn. “Julie and the Phantoms, right?”

Flynn nodded, considering this.

“That does sound a lot better as a plural,” she said. “All right, I’ll play along. Somehow your ghost friends got erased.”

“Or brought back to life,” Reggie said. “The news articles said I’m the only one who died.”

“What did he say?” Flynn said, watching Julie watch Reggie.

“Luke and Alex are supposed to be alive somewhere,” Julie said. “You were right, about looking them up.”

Flynn made a face.

“I was really hoping I was wrong, and I just forgot the name of Reggie’s band or something,” she said. “I thought it was weird, that you were talking about his bandmates. I remember you telling me he’s super upset about it.”

“I am!” Reggie said. “It’s the worst. And I mean, I’m a good musician, but I’m the bassist. Who has a band that’s just bass and piano?”

Julie smiled at the return of a more normal Reggie. He just wasn’t the same if he wasn’t trying to hold a conversation with somebody who had no way of knowing it was happening.

“So do we even know anybody who could do something like this?” Flynn asked, wrapping her arm around Julie and leading her to the couch. They collapsed onto it together, Reggie joining them a second later and dropping his arm around Julie’s shoulders. “I mean, I know Reggie has his whole ‘magically appears when you play together’ thing, but memory wipes or resurrection or time travel? That’s on a whole different level.”

“You think it could be time travel?” Reggie said. Julie couldn’t tell if he was excited or horrified. She didn’t think he quite knew.

“We thought it might be Caleb again,” Julie said. “Willie’s gone to check it out.”

“Wait, hang on. Caleb? Willie? How many mysterious ghost friends do you have?”

“Caleb,” Julie said slowly. “He’s the ghost who tried to take the guys away, force them to play in his house band. I guess it was just Reggie, here.”

“Yeah, none of that sounds familiar,” Flynn said. She looked Julie over thoughtfully. “Maybe we should start with what _you_ think has been happening, since clearly we’re not on the same page.”

Julie started to tell Flynn the full story of Julie and the Phantoms, starting from the day she played the demo and carrying through the night they played the Orpheum. Reggie piped up whenever he thought Julie left something out, which was mostly details Flynn didn’t need or things about the Hollywood Ghost Club.

“Yeah, you… never played the Orpheum. Wow, Jules, I _know_ you’re good, but a month-old band playing there?” Flynn shrugged. “It is what you deserve, though, so I’ll believe you. I guess with just Reggie, somehow he never met Caleb?”

“Oh, _no,”_ Reggie said. He raised a finger, nervous energy overflowing. “I wouldn’t have met Willie. That was Alex, when he was freaking out.”

“And Willie introduced you to Caleb,” Julie finished. “So the stamp, the jolts, the Orpheum…”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell him?” Reggie said timidly. His eyes widened, and he jumped off the couch. Julie fell back against Flynn in surprise.

“Wanna fill me in?” Flynn asked.

“Uh…” Julie would have loved to, but she honestly wasn’t sure what Reggie was doing.

“Hi, Willie!” Reggie said, fingers caught nervously in the flannel tied around his waist. Julie winced in sympathy.

“Willie just showed up,” she said as Reggie burst into a series of frantic questions.

“Still don’t know who Willie is,” Flynn said. “Though, with your luck, I’m guessing he’s _also_ a cute ghost boy?”

“How’d you know Luke and Alex are cute?” Julie asked. She glanced at Reggie, who had barely paused. Now he’d let go of his shirt and was using both hands to gesture.

“Educated guess,” Flynn said. When Julie laughed, Flynn elbowed her gently. “And there’s information about Sunset Curve on the internet. Just because they’re old now doesn’t mean they always were!”

“This is so weird in so many ways,” Julie murmured. “And, yeah, Willie’s a ghost. No idea if he’s cute.”

“You can’t _see_ him?” Flynn asked.

Julie shook her head.

“I think it’s just the ghosts I have a connection with,” she said. “The ones my mom sent to me.”

Flynn’s face softened. She grabbed Julie’s hand and squeezed.

“So why is Willie here?” she asked. “Something to do with that Caleb guy?”

“Willie and Alex are dating,” Julie said. “Except…” She looked nervously at Reggie, who was nodding intently along to whatever Willie was saying.

“Caleb owns Willie’s soul,” Julie whispered. “We were kind of talking about getting it back, but it’s not like any of us knows how this ghost thing works. Anyway, he introduced the guys to Caleb, but he also helped us get the gig at the Orpheum.”

“Wow,” Flynn said. “That’s a lot.”

Julie jumped when Reggie collapsed next to her on the couch again.

“You ok?” she asked him as he curled his arms around himself.

“Willie says Caleb didn’t remember us,” Reggie said. “Which is great!”

“But that means we don’t know who did this,” Julie finished.

“Yeah…” Reggie said with a drawn-out sigh.

“Ok,” Julie said. “Ok. So, all four of us are here, everybody who knows about Luke and Alex, and we can figure this out together. Right?”

“Right!” Reggie said, pointing at her excitedly. He curled his finger back in a moment later. “Where do we even start?”

“Probably by making sure you tell Flynn and I everything Willie actually said,” Julie said with a smile.

Reggie told the girls – or, Julie, who told Flynn – everything Willie had said. He kind of got a few details out of order, and Willie added some things Reggie had to repeat back to Julie, but they got there eventually.

“So this guy Caleb, he’s basically like a magic ghost mob boss, right?” Flynn said when they were finished. “Wouldn’t he know if somebody else out there has scary mind powers? If I was in charge of ghost Hollywood, you know I’d know everybody in the neighbourhood.”

“I mean, that’s pretty much why he wanted you three,” Willie said, looking at Reggie. “Nobody gets seen the way you do. He thought he was the only one who could put on shows for lifers.”

“Willie says Flynn’s right,” Reggie said quickly, wincing when he realised Julie had been about to say something. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “We should probably have some kind of signal for when Willie is talking, so we don’t talk over him.”

“Or so I don’t talk over Reggie, because again, I can’t see any ghosts?” Flynn put in helpfully.

“We could just…” Reggie raised his hand slowly, like he was in school again. Did kids in 2020 still raise their hands? Following Julie to her actual classes was more Luke’s thing. Reggie liked talking to Ray during the day.

“That works,” Julie said, demonstrating for Flynn. She grimaced. “Feels like I’m in class, but it works.”

So students _did_ still raise their hands!

“This is gonna get so weird, so fast,” Flynn said. “What did Willie say?”

“That he agreed with you,” Julie said. “But how does that help us?”

“Julie,” Flynn said. “Jules. Imagine you’re, I don’t know, the new kid, and you’re talking to Carrie. If you, as the new kid, asked her about really good singers, maybe brought up that you heard one girl has a hologram band, would you not _immediately_ have to sit through an entire lecture about how great Carrie is and how terrible Julie and the Phantom are?”

“That – that might actually be a good plan,” Willie said as Reggie helpfully raised his hand. “He’s never said anything about other strong ghosts to me, but he wouldn’t want us to think somebody out there is better than him. If you brought it up first, he’d probably want to shut that down.”

“So if we annoyed him enough, we could get information out of him?” Reggie looked around at his friends. “Willie says it might work, but that sounds really dangerous. And you girls shouldn’t go anywhere near him.”

“You think we can’t handle it, Reg?” Julie said with a competitive glint in her eye.

“We couldn’t,” Reggie said glumly. “ _I_ don’t want to be anywhere near Caleb. I wish Willie didn’t have to.”

Willie ran a hand through his hair, laughing nervously.

“Man, it’s fine,” he said. “I’ll just go back, ask Caleb some stuff.”

“But you can’t!” Julie blurted as soon as Reggie repeated his words. “What if Caleb thinks you’re trying to get your soul back? He’ll hurt you.”

Willie opened his mouth, closed it, then looked at Reggie. Reggie wasn’t sure what Willie was looking for, so he just shrugged and gestured at Julie.

“I’m actually with Julie on this, that is a great point,” he said.

Willie laughed incredulously.

“I’ve been fine for decades, come on,” he said.

“Reggie?” Julie asked, a sharp edge to her voice.

“He says he’s fine?” Reggie squeaked.

“Is he trying to do that thing, where you say it’ll be fine but you don’t mean it?” Flynn asked. “Because I’ve watched a lot of movies and stuff, and that’s kind of what it sounds like.”

“He is,” Julie said, and Reggie cringed. That was angry-Julie-voice, the one where she was about to tell you that you were being stupid or selfish or needed to get out of her room, right now, because you really should know better by now. It carried heavy undertones of disappointed-Julie, which was much worse. “And we’re gonna find another way. Together.”

“It is what we do,” Reggie agreed. Willie laughed again, still sounding uncomfortable but less like he was forcing it.

“Ok,” he said. “Only other ghost here is you, Reggie. You really want to go back there?”

Reggie’s hand paused halfway up. He pointed at Willie, shook his hand out, then pointed again.

“Not really,” he said. “But I will.”

“You will do what?” Julie asked sternly. Reggie groaned.

“Caleb doesn’t know me,” he began. Julie glared at him immediately.

“You are not going back there!” she cried.

“Yeah, Julie said you _just_ escaped,” Flynn said. “We are talking about Reggie going to that ghost club, right?” she added in an undertone.

“Yes, we are, and it’s not happening,” Julie said.

“It makes way more sense for me to ask questions than Willie!” Reggie exclaimed. “And if I don’t do it, he’s alone.”

Julie didn’t immediately respond. Instead she looked up, like she did when she talked to her mom.

_Oh no._

“I don’t want to lose you,” she said. “Caleb almost destroyed you guys, and now you’re the only bandmate I have left, Reggie.”

“It’s for Luke and Alex,” Reggie said softly. Julie nodded, tearing her eyes away from the ceiling.

“Ok,” she said. “But we plan this out, and if anything goes wrong you poof out of there. We are not going to find out if we can get a third chance, all right?”

“Fine by me,” Reggie said. “Almost being wiped from existence once was more than enough for me.”

Julie hugged him for just a second before sitting up and explaining to Flynn what she’d missed.

“So,” Flynn said at the end. “Let me just make sure. This guy Caleb – ghost, terrifying ghost control powers – maybe knows somebody who could do this. So we’re going to send in a ghost Caleb already owns and a ghost we know he really wants, to try and get information, and Julie and I get to sit around talking about how much we care about you in case something goes wrong? Because, as far as we know, being really good friends with each other is our only defence against this guy?”

Reggie looked around. Julie and Willie looked as uncomfortable with Flynn’s speech as he felt.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Julie said.

“This is a terrible plan,” Flynn said. “You’re really lucky I like you.”

She held her arms out, and Julie leaned in for a hug. They leaned their foreheads together for a few seconds.

“Let’s go get your other ghost boys back, ok? I would much rather have my weirdo Julie back,” Flynn said.

“I love you so much,” Julie said.

Reggie sniffled. They were just so sweet.

“Dude,” Willie said.

“It’s an emotional moment, Willie, I care about my friends!” Julie laughed at Reggie’s outburst, though she was still leaning on Flynn.

Willie patted him on the back sympathetically.

“I was just going to say you have some pretty cool friends,” he said. “And also that I’ll meet you at the beach tomorrow to do this, because I don’t think I’m going to stick around and spy on a couple of lifers who can’t see me, even if they are your friends.”

“Oh,” Reggie said. “Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.” As the feeling of an impending poof-out gathered in the air – and why was it, really, that ghosts could feel each other do that? – he reached out impulsively.

“Thanks, man,” he said to Willie. “I know you miss Alex, and that’s why you’re doing this, but… thanks.”

“It’s not just Alex I owe,” Willie said. He grinned at Reggie, shrugging. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Reggie said. Now it was just him, Julie, and Flynn.

“I’m gonna go see what Ray’s up to,” Reggie told Julie. “Check in with him. It’s been a crazy day, I’m sure he’d love to hear all about it.”

“Yeah,” Julie said quietly. She didn’t say anything about her dad not being able to hear Reggie, which he appreciated. “We’ll meet you in the house in a few, ok?”

They bumped fists as he passed. He could have poofed, but honestly Reggie thought he could use the late afternoon sunshine. The studio was off slightly with Luke and Alex gone, but the garden, at least, remained the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream team! I do not know why my brain has latched onto Julie, Reggie, Flynn, and Willie as "ideal heist crew" (ok so it's not a heist but like. you never know. Maybe next my brain fixates on a Leverage au oh god now I'm thinking about it.) but here we are. This is my dream team. You're all welcome.  
> (There's a moment where Flynn calls the band 'Julie and the Phantom' because as far as she knows that's correct but every time I revised this chapter it gave me hives. That's literally the joke I used for the name, but seeing it go unremarked is... Bad.)  
> Another fun fact, this chapter is over three thousand words, which makes it nearly half of the story so far. I anticipate chapters getting longer as we get more into it, because I never use one word where I could write three pages of Emotional Body Language!  
> Also, there is a tentative chapter count, which puts us at a quarter of the way through the fic. Unless I really go off the rails, it should stay the same, but I always expect my writing to go off the rails. When I thought of this idea, I thought it would be five chapters tops and also that we'd see Alex and Luke muuuuuch, much sooner. Be prepared for some nonsense, folks, it all gets wilder from here.


	5. Life Is a Risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynn and Julie are technically a lifeline for Reggie, which is a weird feeling when coupled with the knowledge that they can do nothing but sing and talk about how much they care about their friends. Willie and Reggie get the world's worst feeling of deja vu. Even Caleb's not having a great time, but that's his own fault.

“You’re sure you’ll be ok?” Julie asked Reggie for the eighth time. Flynn shared a conspiratorial glance with the spot she was pretty sure Willie was standing in. Not that she had a lot to go on, but it was the place Julie _wasn’t_ looking except sometimes when she looked confused.

Ghost friends were really hard to hang out with if you didn’t have a magical connection with them.

“Just… be careful, ok?” Julie said. This was a new phrase in Julie’s loop, so Flynn guessed Reggie must have finally said something to calm her down. “We’ll be here.”

The plan was simple, on their end. Julie and Flynn would jam, Julie playing and singing, Flynn freestyling a few rhymes about friendship and love, so if anything went wrong Reggie had something to latch on to. None of them were really sure _how_ singing at the Orpheum had brought the band back to Julie, least of all Flynn since she hadn’t _been there_. But it was what they had, and from what Julie said that Reggie said, there had been some kind of tangible pull, telling the ghosts Julie was out there. Waiting for them. Singing for them.

If Flynn was a less cool person, she might have been jealous. Some days, maybe she was.

It was really weird seeing Julie cling to empty air the way she’d done over the last two days. Flynn knew Julie liked hugs, because they hugged all the time, but seeing her hug absolutely nothing? It freaked her out, just a bit.

Flynn liked Reggie. He was fun, and he’d prompted Julie to write that song for her. The last thing Flynn wanted was to see Julie lose any of her new friends, because she’d seen sad Julie. They’d just barely kicked sad Julie to the curb. She just kind of wished Double Trouble had been something more than a couple kids’ dream.

“Reggie says I need to hug you for him,” Julie said, startling Flynn. Flynn rolled her eyes fondly as they hugged. And then Reggie did things like this, and she remembered that maybe him being around wasn’t just a good thing for Julie. Maybe Flynn could get more friends out of this, too.

The whole “some of these ghosts we’re searching for are adult men who once played in a band with Carrie’s dad” thing, though, that was weird. She hoped when they fixed all this, other Flynn wouldn’t remember, because that was going to take some serious processing. She had _no_ clue how Julie was handling it so well.

Julie pulled away, sitting down at the keyboard and running her hands over the keys. Flynn looked at her best friend’s face.

“You looked up your other ghost boys yet? Apart from the whole, they’re alive thing,” Flynn said.

Julie’s fingers slipped, hitting a C with a force that made them both wince. Julie sighed and started to play a little pattern, just a few arpeggios in a basic chord progression. Flynn might have miscalculated by bringing this up now, but if she didn’t push through Julie would just think about it all night long.

“Julie,” she said sternly.

“I haven’t,” Julie said. “I mean… if I look them up. Then it’s real. Then getting them back means… asking them to die.”

Flynn hadn’t thought of that. This ghost stuff was easy to look at like a fun adventure, especially since she hadn’t known until recently there were things like evil soul-stealing ghost cabarets out there. It was all Julie singing and a secret they kept together and Reggie writing country songs that Julie inevitably had to rearrange until they sounded a little less like they belonged in Nashville. It was easy to forget that Reggie had actually _died_.

“And the last thing I want to do,” Julie said, pounding away at the basic chords of the phrase. “Is find out they didn’t need us.”

Flynn knew a little something about that, at least, not that she’d put it in those words.

“Ok, look,” she said. “If we’re being honest, I’m scared right now. Like, I trust you, Jules, but you just told me yesterday that the past month at _least_ has been a lie – longer if you count all those times we hung out with Carrie and her dad talked about his first band.”

Julie looked up at her, frowning.

“But you need me,” Flynn said. “And not in your band. I know. I dealt with that when this whole ghost thing got started. Kinda wish Double Trouble could have happened. But I know you still _need_ me.”

“Because we’re friends,” Julie said.

“Best friends,” Flynn said. “You think just anybody could have figured out exactly where I was going with that? I didn’t even have to start the sentence and you finished it. We’re connected.”

“We all are,” Julie said.

“Yeah,” Flynn agreed. “And no matter what we all have to admit about Reggie’s bandmates being alive, from everything you’ve told me I know they feel the same way about him. If they knew there was an option not to leave him alone? If they knew they had _you_ , in another version of life? I wouldn’t give you up, not for some boring music career in the early 2000s followed by increasing obscurity to all but the most die-hard of my fans.”

Julie laughed. The chord progression gained a little syncopation, a little funk. Flynn started to nod her head, finally feeling the beat.

“Are you really upset about not being in the band?” Julie asked.

Flynn rolled her eyes.

“I was upset whenever I thought you might have been leaving me behind,” she said. “Anyway, I’m part of the band, too, right? Your manager? Not to mention all you have to do is say the word and I will solo on any of your songs.”

“Julie and the Phantoms, featuring Double Trouble,” Julie said with a laugh. The chord progression was getting more complex.

“Exactly,” Flynn said with satisfaction. “I’ve got your back, tell me what you need, because no ghost is taking down you and me.”

Julie caught the rhythm in her voice and grinned, starting to vocalise with her.

“Ok,” Willie said nervously. He smiled at Reggie, because he’d had enough serious emotions in front of Alex’s friends already. “So. I asked Caleb if he could help out a ghost I met, I said you wanted to talk to your old bandmates, and I threw in that you could be seen when you play with Julie because he needed a reason to want to talk to you. Basically, how it went down last time.”

“And how do we make sure it doesn’t go down like last time?” Reggie asked.

That was the part none of them were quite sure of.

“If it comes to that I’ll distract him,” Willie said. Reggie looked worried, and he added quickly, “Look, as far as Caleb knows it’s the first time I’ve disobeyed him. He didn’t hurt me even when I kept checking up on you, before the Orpheum, so I’ve got a few free passes before Caleb decides to punish me.”

Maybe using the word ‘punish’ wasn’t a great plan. Reggie just looked even more worried.

“Hey, man, it’ll be fine,” Willie said. “For Alex and Luke, right?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said, lifting his chin. “Yeah, let’s go.”

It was haunting – Willie didn’t bother explaining to Reggie when the thought made him laugh – how similarly things went this time. Willie slid down the banister again, less because it was fun and more because everybody at the club who knew him would know something was wrong if he didn’t. Reggie was looking around, eyes wide, clearly even more nervous than last time, but nerves weren’t out of place here. So far, they were good.

“I really don’t like being here alone,” Reggie murmured.

Willie considered being offended by that, but Reggie’s meaning was obvious. That was one thing they had in common, actually – they’d both rather be with Alex. (And, in Reggie’s case, Luke, but then the joke didn’t land the same way.)

“It’s all right,” Willie said, hoping he sounded convincing. “Maybe don’t talk like that, though? A few nerves make sense. Panic, and Caleb will want to know why.”

“Well, maybe I had a bad experience the last time I was at a club like this,” Reggie said defensively. “I did, actually.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Willie said. “Can we maybe not revisit that, especially right now?” He grinned at the waiter who showed them to their table: reserved, white tablecloth, round crystal centrepiece. Same as last time.

Willie resisted the urge to pick up the reservation placard and rip it to shreds.

“Are we gonna have to sit through another show?” Reggie asked quietly. “Because I think I might hide in the bathroom.”

“Ghosts don’t pee,” Willie reminded him. “And if anybody would pick up on that, it’s Caleb. Trust me, tonight’s set is short.”

“Right, yeah,” Reggie said. “Only, it was short last time, and then we missed three hours of Julie’s school dance that we were supposed to play for.”

“What last time?” Willie said through gritted teeth and a plastered-on smile.

“Ohhh,” Reggie said. “Right.” He crossed his arms, frowned, then shoved his hands in his pockets. “Is everybody here… I mean, how many of Caleb’s performers volunteered?”

Willie touched his wrist reflexively.

“Most of us do,” he said quietly. “Why refuse? The afterlife only has so much going for it, and we’re all ghosts. We all want to stick around. It doesn’t usually take a lot to convince us to stay somewhere the party never ends.”

 _There’s a lot to like_ , Willie had told Alex the first time around.

“But ghosts could party anywhere,” Reggie said. “Literally! I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but Caleb doesn’t seem like your type of guy. He’s all…” Reggie wriggled upright in his seat. “And you’re more like…” He made a little swiping hand gesture and a head nod that Willie guessed was supposed to imitate him skating somehow.

“Most ghosts come here looking for the same thing you did,” Willie said. “A party’s only as good as the people you’re with, and everybody ends up leaving someone behind.”

This was getting way too heavy for his taste. Thankfully, Willie didn’t have to find a new subject, because the lights dimmed and the band started playing.

Flynn and Julie had to plan out their breaks carefully – they didn’t know how long the guys would be, just that time passed weirdly in the club. Julie was expecting another late night, except at least this time she knew where Reggie and Willie were, and why it was taking so long.

This time, they’d come back unharmed.

As Julie played around with a chromatic scale, just for something to do while Flynn hydrated, she found her eyes drifting to her mom’s grand piano. Julie had picked the keyboard so she could record phrases and play them back, keeping the music going even if she needed a break. It had only been an hour, and she was trying not to worry, but she wondered if playing her mom’s piano might help. All they had to go on was love, and that piano meant more to Julie and the band than maybe any other instrument, except the guys’.

“You ok?” Flynn asked. Julie smiled at her.

“Just thinking,” she said. “I wish we knew more about how we got rid of Caleb’s stamp, or how I got the guys to the Orpheum.”

“Right,” Flynn said. “You know, for how many movies and stuff talk about the power of love, everybody is really vague on how it works.”

“Right?” Julie said, laughing. She raised her eyebrows at Flynn. “You have any ideas?”

“You got music back because you made a friend,” Flynn said. “Or three friends.”

“I got music back because they wouldn’t let me ignore the memories of my mom,” Julie said. “It wasn’t… I love the guys. But I didn’t play for them, not for a while.”

“Yeah,” Flynn said. “But you love your mom. And you love the band, and music, and me of course because I’m the coolest person you know.”

Julie laughed again.

“And you love you,” Flynn said. “Which I hadn’t seen from you since before your mom died, not until you played again. So I don’t know how this power of love stuff works, but I think it matters that you have so much love, and so much weird ghost power. I think maybe they’re the same thing.”

Julie thought about the guys’ quest for their unfinished business. She realised she was idly playing the opening chords to “Bright”.

“Do you think ghosts stick around because they love things?” Julie asked. “Like, maybe that’s what unfinished business is?”

“I hope so,” Flynn said. “Because that makes Reggie’s unfinished business you, which means I don’t have to worry about helping you through losing him any time soon. And, if I die, then I’ll just come back to haunt you.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Julie said, though not without fondness.

“Can’t get rid of me,” Flynn reminded her. “Crazy glue, remember?”

“Crazy something, all right,” Julie said, deciding to commit to “Bright”.

The show _was_ short, which Reggie was grateful for. He spent the entire time ready to bounce out of his seat, and not in the usual dancey, happy way.

“William,” came a smooth voice from behind. Reggie yelped, toppling sideways out of his chair. Willie reached across the table to steady him, and Reggie caught a split second where Willie’s eyes were serious and pleading.

“Hey, Caleb!” Willie said brightly. “This is Reggie. My new friend.” He kicked Reggie lightly under the table.

“Oh, uh – that was. Really cool.” Reggie fumbled around in his head for what pretend-Reggie would say. “Willie said these are all lifers? How do you make them see you?”

“A lot of practice,” Caleb said. “And, I’ll admit, it’s a gift of mine. Not everybody can be so lucky.” His smile deepened as he fixed his eyes on Reggie. Reggie gulped. The eye contact made his skin crawl.

“I hear you are quite lucky in that regard, though,” Caleb said. “You’ve started a band with a living girl.”

Reggie _really_ wished they could have left Julie out of it, but even if Willie hadn’t said anything it wasn’t like Caleb couldn’t use the internet.

“Yeah,” he said. “But, um, my bandmates – I don’t want to have to play somebody else’s songs every time I want to talk to them, and it would be weird to have Julie there, and I just kind of want… closure?” He squeaked out the last word nervously, then cleared his throat.

“Yeah,” Reggie said, forcing his voice a little deeper than usual. “That’s what I want.”

Caleb clucked his tongue pityingly.

“I may have skills, but there’s only so many ways to be seen,” he said. “The Hollywood Ghost Club is the only place where lifers can see you, and even then it’s only after the show starts. Get too much of a good thing, it loses its shine.”

Willie kicked Reggie under the table again.

“Oh! Uh… So is there somebody else who could do it, then?”

Other ghosts actually paused to look at them. Willie was still, wide-eyed, watching Caleb. Reggie squeezed his own fingers nervously.

“No,” Caleb said tightly. “There isn’t. Who told you there was?”

“No-nobody,” Reggie stammered. “I just thought, you know, lots of people die, it seems weird that only one ghost can do all your magic tricks –“

“Magic tricks?” Caleb snapped. Reggie and Willie both flinched. “She put you up to this, didn’t she?”

Reggie cast a wide-eyed glance at Willie, who looked as lost as Reggie felt.

“That so-called scientist is a sadist who toys with any ghost who crosses her path,” Caleb snarled. He paused, taking a deep breath, and sat back in his chair.

“I’m sorry if I scared you boys,” he said. “But she is dangerous, and there aren’t many people who can protect you from her.” His usual smug smile reappeared, though Reggie still felt Caleb’s anger like pressure in the air.

“I’m one of them, though,” he said. “And if you like, Reggie, you could stick around. Be part of the club. The party never ends, and you never have to be alone.”

Reggie stiffened. This version of Caleb knew him for five minutes, and he’d already picked out one of Reggie’s weaknesses. They had to get out as fast as possible.

“Yeah,” he said. “Uh, let me think about it?”

“Of course,” Caleb said. “I should mingle, anyway. I’ll check back in with you boys. William?”

Willie swallowed.

“Yeah?” he said, smiling nervously.

“Make sure you show your new friend a good time,” Caleb said menacingly.

“That’s weird,” Reggie said when Caleb left. “Last time he kept dragging you away.”

“Last time Alex was here,” Willie said glumly.

“Of all the things I would expect from Caleb, homophobia actually wasn’t one,” Reggie remarked. Maybe it was the glitz and flash of his show. Oh no, was that a stereotype?

“He isn’t,” Willie said. “But things like – like crushes. They’re just obstacles to him.”

Caleb was talking to some woman in a floor-length black dress, but his eyes were still on Reggie and Willie. Willie stood up, tugging at Reggie’s arm.

“Let’s mingle, at least until Caleb isn’t looking,” he said.

Reggie ended up in a conversation with the same couple who’d told him about Star Wars last time. They were saying something about new Star Trek, which he tuned out because he’d really only seen the whale movie as a kid and the new series they’d been making before he died hadn’t caught his attention. He let his eyes wander the room, and frowned when he saw somebody vaguely familiar.

It was a man, old like Julie’s dad and not yet grey-haired, with brown hair and stubble. Reggie didn’t know what about him was familiar. Maybe he was a ghost, and Reggie had met him once before they died? He couldn’t imagine what lifer he’d recognise here. They were all modern-day celebrities, after all.

“Hey, who’s that?” he asked Willie.

Willie frowned.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Must be new. I’ve never seen him at the club before.”

The man saw them watching, and his eyes widened. He stepped back, nearly stumbling into a waiter with a tray of drinks, before turning and leaving the room.

“He _must_ be new,” Reggie laughed. “You’d think he’s never seen a ghost before.”

“Yeah,” Willie said, but when Reggie glanced at him, he was frowning.

“You ok, dude?” Reggie asked.

“Come on, Caleb’s busy,” Willie said. “Let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the first thing I have to say is I love Star Trek and I freaking love DS9, which would have been the show happening at the time of Reggie's death, it's just that sometimes I write characters with different opinions than me to remind myself that is also how the world works and as long as it's something mild like 'I prefer this media to this one' it's nothing to get upset about. (however, Deep Space Nine is really good in spite of the showrunners' best efforts at times and the characters get way less love than they deserve, especially Sisko - it's the racism - anyway it's a good show and that's not what this author's note is about)  
> The second thing I have to say is I'm sorry that you can pinpoint all the moments where we would have songs, but also it's very bleh reading lyrics. It takes a lot of work to make song scenes dynamic in a written format, and there wasn't anything I could tell you with Flynn's freestyle or Caleb's show that you didn't already know. Also, none of you want to read my attempts at writing rhymes, let alone a rap. My knowledge of hip hop culture is deeply dance centered and does not come from personal experience, and it would be Bad. Just imagine that Flynn said some really cool things and made up some nice slant rhymes, the way she does in canon, and we shall let that one go.  
> I changed course in this chapter as I was writing it, which means now I have changed course in the story - the overall plotting is the same I just need to take a minute to recalibrate some future chapters, so the story might get a little longer and come out a little later in the day. On that note, please remember that I may not be able to post anything tomorrow because I'm teaching tonight and tomorrow - if I can get the next chapter ready, I will, but it's not going to be my priority. I'll be back to the every day thing by Sunday.


	6. We Come Bouncing Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations abound, varying from the "oh man I forgot we could do that" to the "this is horrible and everything is pain". Not necessarily in that order.

“What happened?” Julie asked as soon as Reggie got back, standing up from the keyboard. “Are you ok? Did he say anything? Was Flynn right? Is Willie all right? Is he here or did he stay with Caleb?”

“You really have to ask one question at a time,” Reggie said when she paused for breath. “Willie’s right here.” He pointed to a spot beside him, and Julie waved automatically.

“So what happened?” Flynn said, leaning on Julie’s shoulder and passing her a water bottle. As Julie took a sip, Flynn steered her to the couch.

“Caleb didn’t exactly give us a name,” Reggie said. “But he freaked out when I asked if somebody else had powers like his. Kept talking about ‘her’ being a sadist or something?”

“That’s not comforting,” Julie said before repeating his words for Flynn’s sake.

“I kind of miss when your biggest ghost problems were that your ghost buddy wouldn’t stop writing country songs,” Flynn said.

“What’s wrong with that?” Reggie said.

“Ok, so now what?” Julie asked. “Do we have anybody else we can ask about this? Does Willie know anybody?”

Reggie shook his head.

“Just Caleb,” he said. “Whoever this lady is, she keeps a low profile.”

“So we have nothing,” Julie said. “Caleb knows about you now, and we don’t have anything to show for it. What are we gonna do?”

“Uh, Jules,” Flynn said. “I figured you were trying to put it off, but… there’s one other place we could maybe get some answers.” She pulled out her phone, typing in a quick Google search, and held it out to Julie.

“2000s Sunset Curve,” Julie read from the search bar. She took a shaky breath. “Flynn…”

“I know, you don’t really want to see,” Flynn said. “I’d probably feel the same way. But maybe Alex and Luke know something that can help us, even if they don’t know they do. They can tell us why they didn’t die, at least.”

Julie looked up at Reggie. He shrugged, arms wrapped tightly around himself. She reached out for him, and he let her pull him onto the couch.

“This says they broke up,” Julie said quietly, scrolling through results. She tapped one article, feeling her pulse heavy and warm in her throat.

“Sunset Curve has long been a band with problems,” Julie read. “The show that could have been their big break was marked by tragedy when the original bassist –“ Julie broke off, scrolling further. She was _not_ dealing with that. “We know that. Where’s the rest…”

She took another deep breath and read aloud once more.

“Speculation abounds as to the reason for the split – most suspect tensions in the band have been high since the loss of their bassist, though some think the split was motivated by Luke Patterson’s rising star and desire to go solo.”

“Luke went solo?” Reggie interrupted. “But – he’s never wanted that. He doesn’t even _like_ performing alone.” He squeezed Julie’s hand.

“This says Alex stayed in music, too,” Julie said. She saw Reggie glance up with a proud little smile – Willie was still here, then. “He’s a studio musician.”

“Ooh, what did he play on?” Flynn asked. When Julie raised her eyebrows, she shrank back a little.

“Later, got it,” Flynn said. “But we will circle back to that, and also the fact that I did not realise Reggie’s Luke was Luke Patterson, because I actually know that name.” She paused, then grimaced. “And of course, there’s Carrie’s dad, but at least we know what his deal is.”

“Do we?” Julie asked. “Because, the way Reggie and I remember it, he stole all Luke’s songs and never mentioned Sunset Curve.”

“Ok, that did not happen here,” Flynn said. “He had kind of a decent career? I think Luke wrote for him for a while, and he had that Sunset Curve fame, but he’s not a big deal anymore. Same thing with Luke Patterson.”

“What do you mean?” Julie asked.

Flynn shrugged.

“I don’t know, he didn’t do my style of music, I just remember hearing Luke’s stuff on the radio as a kid. Now there’s not much.”

Julie closed her eyes. They were starting to sting with tears, and she did _not_ want to cry again. She knew musicians went in and out of style, but Luke was good – and more than that, she knew first hand how adaptive he had been to modern music. Even if he’d been playing the same old thing for the last twenty-five years, he’d never let himself fade into obscurity. He’d probably play at book clubs again, just for the notoriety.

“Can I – can I see?” Reggie asked. Julie opened her eyes, passing him the phone wordlessly. They were still holding hands as Reggie scrolled clumsily through the article. He held the phone up slightly, as though he was showing somebody looking over his shoulder. He probably was, Julie realised. Willie.

Then Reggie stiffened, and the phone phased through him and bounced off the couch to the floor.

“Reggie?” Flynn asked.

“That’s – there’s a picture,” Reggie said. The phone floated up, hanging in front of Julie until she took it.

“Thanks, Willie,” she said slowly. She looked from the empty air Willie stood in to Reggie beside her.

“What picture?” she asked. She turned the phone on. It was just some promotional picture of a guy with a guitar. Julie frowned, squinting. The screen was small and she didn’t have her reading glasses, but she was sure she knew him.

“Is that Luke?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Reggie choked out. “And he was at the Hollywood Ghost Club earlier.”

Now it was Julie’s turn to drop the phone.

Reggie knew he should probably give Julie more information, but he wasn’t sure how bad it was. He just knew that Willie was frozen, halfway to sitting cross-legged on the table, staring at the phone.

“Willie?” he asked.

“I really hoped I was wrong,” Willie said. He laughed shakily. “I’m really sorry, Reggie.”

“So… so he paid Caleb a bunch of money,” Reggie said. “He knows about ghosts! That should be easier, right?” He knew as he said it that wasn’t all. It was Caleb. How could that be all?

Beside him, Julie and Flynn were tense and silent, watching him. Reggie wished they could hear Willie, and that whatever bad news he had wasn’t something Reggie would then be forced to share.

“The lifers at the club don’t pay money, Reg,” Willie said. “They bargain their souls. Automatic ghosthood, under Caleb’s thumb.”

“He wouldn’t want that!” Reggie exclaimed. “He doesn’t. I know him.”

“Yeah,” Willie said with a bitter laugh. “You know him from twenty-five years ago.”

“Reggie?” Julie asked. Reggie realised he was squeezing Julie’s hand still. He let go.

“Willie says… Lifers at the club give Caleb their souls,” he whispered. “So Caleb has Luke.”

Julie shook her head, staring at Reggie like she was begging him to say it was all a bad joke. Reggie looked down.

“Hey,” Willie said. “Look, I’ll bet that’s only here. If we can figure out what happened, change things back, he’ll be fine.”

“Oh, yeah, except he’ll also be dead at seventeen just like us,” Reggie snapped. Julie stared at him, wide-eyed, and Reggie immediately felt guilty.

“I was talking to Willie,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. He just said… it’s probably just this Luke Caleb owns. Not ours.”

Julie nodded. “That – that makes sense.”

“Hey,” Flynn said softly. “Julie, I know it’s a bad time, but do you want to fill me in? It’s more than just Luke being in debt to Caleb, isn’t it?”

“He sold his _soul,_ Flynn,” Julie said. “He said he’d rather stop existing than go to Caleb, he told me –“ She clapped her hands over her mouth and jumped up, running from the studio before anyone could stop her.

“She _likes_ Luke, doesn’t she?” Flynn said into the silence.

“Yeah,” Reggie said uselessly. Even if Flynn could hear him, she clearly already knew.

“Hey,” Willie said, nudging Reggie. “I’ll fill Flynn in, not hard to leave a note to a lifer. You go see how Julie is.”

“Oh, man, we could have been writing to each other the whole time?” Reggie said, momentarily distracted by this revelation.

“Go,” Willie said with a tiny smile.

“Right, yeah,” Reggie said. He poofed out.

It didn’t take long for Reggie to show up at Julie’s bedroom door. He phased his arm through and knocked gently, like a parody of that time he’d tried to be “classy”. Julie let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“Come in,” she said. Reggie stepped through the door and stood there nervously, gripping his own hands tightly.

“Come sit, I know you don’t wanna stand there,” Julie said, rolling her eyes.

“Thanks,” Reggie said. He sat next to her, unusually stiff. There was more space between them than there’d been since Julie started being able to touch the guys.

Reggie wasn’t talking. Julie realised if they were going to get anywhere, she was probably going to have to start.

And if anyone was going to understand how she felt right now, it would be Reggie.

“He said no music was worth making without me,” Julie said softly. “And I know, he doesn’t know me, but I’d thought…”

“He’d still be the same Luke we know?” Reggie offered. “Yeah. Me, too.”

He wiped at his eyes.

“Julie, can I tell you a secret?” he said. “Alex and Luke would be mad at me for saying anything, but… what are they going to do, right? Yell at me?”

Julie almost laughed.

“Go for it,” she said. She leaned tentatively into his side, relaxing when he wrapped his arm around her and laid his cheek against her head.

“We would have taken Caleb’s offer,” Reggie said. “I mean, they had _pizza_! That we could eat! And really good dancers, and people could see us, and…”

“The party never ends,” Julie finished.

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “But we had a band already, and Luke remembered that faster than any of us. We wouldn’t have left you.”

“You didn’t,” Julie corrected him, blinking back tears.

“Because we had each other, and we had you,” Reggie said. “And we had _our_ music, not Caleb’s. This Luke, he doesn’t have any of that. Yeah, he’s making music, but you and me? We’re the ones he writes songs with. Luke doesn’t like working solo. Without me, without Alex, without you – and I guess Bobby,” he added with a roll of his eyes. “Caleb’s offer was probably the best thing he’s had in a long time.”

“That doesn’t really make it better,” Julie admitted.

“No,” Reggie agreed. He lifted his head. Julie tensed, but he kept his arm around her. “I can’t stop thinking about how it’s my fault Sunset Curve broke up.”

“It is _not_ your fault!” Julie said, startled into anger. “They’re the ones who decided to fight with each other and stop playing together instead of coping!”

 _Yeah, who’d ever stop doing something they love just because they lost somebody?_ said a mean little voice in Julie’s head. It kind of sounded like Carrie, actually.

“I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault,” Julie said slowly. Mean mental Carrie had a point, even if Julie really wished the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “The person responsible is the one who did this, all this world-changing stuff in the first place. Not us. Not the guys.”

There was another knock on the door. Reggie shot up from the bed like he was scared he was going to get caught. Julie rolled her eyes fondly.

“ _Mija_?” It was her dad. “I saw you run in here pretty fast, is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Julie said loudly. “Uh, I just needed to get something. For Flynn! Because we’re… hanging out.”

Reggie gave her a look of incredulity that exactly matched the faces everybody else always made at him. Julie scowled at him teasingly.

“All right,” her dad said. “Is Flynn staying for dinner?”

“Uh. I’ll ask! I’ll go down there,” Julie said. She grabbed the closest object and opened the door. “I will take this… hairbrush down there, and I will ask.” She broadened her smile just a little to cover for how much she was dying inside. A hairbrush? Really?

“Ok,” her dad said, eyeing the hairbrush like he knew something was up but didn’t want to call her on it. Julie loved her dad. “Just let me know. Your _tía_ dropped off dinner again today, so it’s not quite leftovers.”

Julie smiled at him.

“Thanks, dad,” she said.

“Bye, Ray, see you at dinner,” Reggie said as he followed Julie down the stairs. Julie tried not to laugh.

When they reached the studio, Flynn was engaged in conversation with… a notebook?

“Willie’s still here?” Julie asked. A pen raised up and wiggled. Julie smiled and waved at it.

“He told me what’s up with Luke and Caleb,” Flynn said. “Are you ok?”

“Better,” Julie said. She looked away for a moment, unable to handle Flynn’s concerned expression for long. Her friend could always see right through her, and it was only a blessing most of the time. “Trying not to think about some things, but. Better.”

“Good,” Flynn said. “Because Willie and I were thinking, if we want to know more about adult Luke before we talk to him, we definitely have to talk to Alex. Also, Willie wants to see his boyfriend.”

The pen launched itself at Flynn, who dodged and grinned cheekily at the space where Willie was.

“We knew the writing notes thing would work, didn’t we?” Julie said to Reggie. “Because we actually did that to get the Orpheum gig?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “Yeah, we did and we still didn’t think of it.”

Julie sighed. At least embarrassment was an emotion she was used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you don't think you're going to write anything in a day, and then you wake up at seven am and bust out over two thousand words. I'm like Scotty from Star Trek, I give you long estimates and low expectations so everybody goes "ooh! Aah!" when I do better than that.  
> It is getting progressively weirder to keep a balance between the requisite angst of the situation and the inherent hilarity of the characters, but given one of the funniest sequences in the entire show comes immediately after Julie discovers the existence of ghosts and while the guys are dealing with suddenly being ghosts, it's important to me that I retain that balance of moods in this fic. Please let me know if it worked or if it just gave you mood whiplash.  
> Also, hey! At long last, you're getting Alex content! I'm so excited for next chapter, I've had about eight versions of this scene bouncing around in my head every morning I'm at my terrible retail job. (Five am is an awful time to be moving heavy boxes but apparently a great time for the creative process so.)


	7. Wish I Could Hold You Through It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A whole bundle of angst for you. You all wanted Alex, right?  
> There's a few implications about Alex dealing with homophobia in his life - nothing that isn't already mentioned or implied by canon (a gay man went through puberty in the 80s, and that affects adult Alex's characterisation) but I want to make sure you're not going in unaware. It's only a few lines, the four paragraphs after "Alex looked down" but it affects how I, a queer woman, feel about this chapter a Lot, so be kind to yourselves.

Alex had two missed phone calls by the time he got out of the shower. One looked like spam and hadn’t left a message. The other was somebody looking to hire him for some soloist’s tour. He deleted the message before he even reached the callback number.

Even if he had been interested in performing, it was his day off. One single, therapist-prescribed day where he pretended the hustle of the unknown professional musician didn’t exist.

 _Write, go to a bar, dance on your rooftop, it doesn’t matter,_ she’d said. _Just remind yourself to breathe. One day where you care about living, not surviving._

She’d gotten a pinched look on her face right after she said it, but Alex wasn’t going to call her out for the slip of the tongue. It wasn’t like all his problems stemmed from losing Reggie, and she was right.

He sat down with a new book, something his younger sister had sent him for his birthday, but before he could do much more than contemplate the cover, the doorbell rang.

“Ok,” Alex said. “Great.”

At least he hadn’t been terribly interested in the book his sister sent.

To his confusion, his visitor was a young girl, maybe a high school student? She opened her mouth when she saw him, but didn’t have anything to say.

“Can I help you?” he asked. He tried to look around to see if there were any Girl Scout cookies or something.

“I…” The girl looked away, like something had startled her.

“Why are you here?” Alex said slowly and loudly.

To his surprise, the girl giggled. She covered her mouth after, like she’d surprised herself too.

“I’m Julie,” she said when she pulled herself together. “Are – you’re Alex, right?”

This was a really _weird_ way to start a solicitation.

“Yeah,” he said. “And I still don’t know why you’re here.”

He was probably being a little rude, especially since she was just a kid, but it had been a weird morning already. He was a recluse for a _reason_.

Julie shifted nervously.

“I live where your band used to practice?” she blurted. “Some of your old stuff is still there.”

Alex swallowed. They’d barely had the heart to grab their own things from the place, after the Orpheum. Luke got his songs, they got their instruments, but they’d always said they’d come back for Reggie’s things and the rest of their gear later. It just never happened.

“Ok,” he said quietly. “What brings you here, Julie?”

“It’s a long story,” she said. “Can we – I. Can I come in?”

He raised his eyebrows at the slip-up, but since there wasn’t anybody else there he assumed it was just an accident.

“Your parents know where you are, Julie?” he asked, not eager to cause any problems in this girl’s life.

“It – it’s just my dad,” she said quietly, then winced. If Alex knew grief, she probably hadn’t meant to say that. “And yeah, it’s fine. If… you’re ok with it?”

Whatever was going on clearly meant a lot to this girl. Alex sighed and stepped aside.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked, more out of habit than a desire to prolong her stay.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Alex… do you believe in ghosts?”

He laughed.

“Excuse me?” he said. The girl just watched him, looking worried.

“No,” he said. He remembered the way she’d corrected him on her parents, and found more words spilling out of him. “I believe there’s certain things I can’t do, places I can’t visit, without the dead haunting me. But that’s not the same thing.”

“No,” Julie agreed softly. “I know what you mean, though.”

“Are you going to get to the point sometime?” Alex asked. This conversation was really making him nervous. So much for a day of relaxation.

“I found your old demo,” Julie began. “Sunset Curve’s first CD. When I played it, I ended up with a bit of a ghost infestation.”

Alex stared at her. In the silence, Julie smiled and jerked her elbow to the side, like she was nudging somebody.

Great. He had invited in an insane teenager. This could only end badly.

“I can prove it,” Julie said quickly, probably seeing his disbelief on his face. “Please.”

“You are… _heavily_ implying that the ghost in question is my old bandmate,” Alex snapped. “Why should I listen to any of this?”

“I can prove it,” Julie said again, more firmly. “Just… look.”

She held out her phone. The Youtube app was open, and she’d pulled up a video credited to “Julie and the Phantom”. Alex sighed and watched.

Julie was a good singer, he’d give her that, even if she did come up with ridiculous and hurtful stories. She had a magnetic stage quality, uncommon at such a young age. Alex knew he never performed half as well without people he cared about around him. One of the great joys of having anxiety as a performer, really.

Then her partner appeared, dancing around with his bass in a way that made Alex’s throat close.

“How… no. No, no, ghosts are _not_ real,” Alex said, pulling away. He kept glancing back at Julie’s phone, still upheld. It looked so much like him. “That says you’re a hologram band, you just… used some kind of technology. It’s not – it can’t be him.”

Julie shut the video off.

“Please,” she said, also choked up. “Let me play for you?”

Alex gestured wordlessly to the living room. He’d gotten the piano for his ex-boyfriend, who’d moved out a month later. It had been years. He felt guilty sometimes that the thing was just collecting dust, but he only had so many memories to cling to.

Julie eyed the piano like she could tell there was a story there – at the very least, she knew Sunset Curve. She’d know Alex was a drummer. Still, she sat down without a word.

She paused, hands over the keys.

“You really sure about this?” she asked.

“It was your idea,” Alex said, confused. Julie glanced at him as though surprised by his answer.

Then she shook her head, smiled, and started to play.

The chords were familiar, if peppier than Alex had expected given the context. It wasn’t until Julie started to sing that he recognised it.

Reggie’s old song, “Home Is Where My Horse Is,” that Luke had always shut down. They’d almost recorded it in memoriam, but like so many other things they hadn’t had the heart.

The only copy of the song had been tucked into Luke’s notebook. Julie couldn’t have found it in the studio.

Then, as if that wasn’t heart-wrenching enough, the banjo solo started, and suddenly Reggie was there.

Alex stood, transfixed. Reggie looked exactly the same as the night he’d died – red flannel, black leather jacket, white shirt. His hair was slicked back, and he picked at the banjo with the same glee Alex had known so well as a kid. He grinned up at Alex, looking teary-eyed even as he bounced in place.

Julie stopped singing, now just looping through chords, as Reggie approached.

“Hey,” he said.

Alex shook his head. What did he even say?

“Where – How… All this time, you’ve been out there?”

Reggie shook his head quickly.

“No, just a month or two,” he said. “Before that I was in that room where you cried –“

Julie cleared her throat loudly. Alex considered asking about that, but there were so many questions it would wait its turn.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. Reggie smiled at him.

“Not your fault,” he said. “Death isn’t what I’d call fun, but Julie’s pretty cool. We’d never have met her otherwise.”

“We?” Alex said. Reggie glanced at Julie, who shrugged as best she could while working through a key change. Reggie pulled out another rapid solo, and Alex let him. He could only imagine ghosthood was _really_ hard to cope with.

“Look, man,” Reggie said finally. “We’re not just here to let you know I’m a ghost now.”

“Right,” Alex said. “Yeah, no, that seems like something you’d only need to send a postcard for.”

“That’s not what he means and you know it,” Julie said, sounding far more like an older sibling than Alex cared for, especially given he was an adult and she was sixteen at most. “Reggie and I woke up the other morning and things were different.”

“She woke up,” Reggie said. “I just… stopped spacing out. Ghosts don’t sleep, it’s weird.”

“Things were different how?” Alex asked.

“The way Reggie and I remember it,” Julie said, key shifting back to the original. “I had three ghosts show up in the studio.”

“All of us,” Reggie said quietly. “Except Bobby.”

“I need to sit down,” Alex said. Reggie followed him, still plucking away at the banjo strings. “Do you have to keep playing that? It’s kind of hard to focus.”

“It’s the only way you can see me,” Reggie said, fingers stilling for a second. “When we play with Julie, that’s when lifers can see us.”

“Lifers?”

Reggie grinned broadly.

“Now I get to tell _you!”_ he said. “Lifers are living people.”

Alex nodded.

“I probably could have figured that one out, now that I think about it,” he said.

“It’s ok, Willie had to tell you last time.”

“Willie?” Alex repeated.

“Reggie,” Julie said. “Focus?”

He sighed, looking at Alex grimly.

“We’re not asking you to die again or anything,” he said. The thought hadn’t even occurred to Alex, and he stared at Reggie in horror. “We just need to figure out who did this, and if our home is still there.”

“Our Luke and Alex need us,” Julie said. Alex looked between his dead best friend and the complete stranger who knew Reggie well enough to play his song.

“How can I help?” he asked.

Reggie and Julie exchanged looks of relief.

“Can I come over?” Julie said. “Reggie will go back to being invisible, but… we planned for that.”

Alex was a little afraid that if he stopped looking at Reggie, he’d never see him again. That was kind of the point of ghosts, right?

“It’s ok,” Reggie said quietly, letting his last banjo note ring in midair as he reached out for Alex. Reggie’s hand passed through Alex’s just before he disappeared. Julie had stopped playing, too.

Alex realised he was crying.

He really was not putting a good front of ‘competent middle-aged man’ in front of this kid.

“Here,” Julie said, sitting on the couch on the other side of where Reggie had been. She held out a pen and a pad of paper, and to Alex’s surprise they floated when she let go.

 _Still here!_ the pen wrote.

Alex laughed wonderingly.

“Ok,” he said. “Wow. Ghosts. My best friend as a kid is a ghost, and there’s another teenager in my house who’s also friends with him, and… I should be a ghost?”

“Or we’re in the wrong universe or something,” Julie said.

“Is that… a risk?”

She shrugged. Reggie wrote, _We almost got our souls stolen but Julie saved us with the power of love, so at this point I don’t rule anything out._

“Yeah,” Alex said. “All right. I see your point.”

He _desperately_ wanted to know the context of that. He also knew that if he did, he’d lie awake at night thinking about it.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Julie asked. “I know it’s a terrible thing to ask. But if we know what changed, we have a place to start.”

Alex hadn’t talked about it since after the band broke up, when he started seeing his therapist and had needed to dust the cobwebs off all that old trauma before he could properly tuck it away. But if anyone deserved to know…

“Bobby was flirting with a bartender,” Alex said. Julie nodded like she’d already known that. She said Bobby had survived in her world. Maybe she did know. “There was this… sound engineer who came over to talk to Luke, and I got dragged into it so we could check the settings with my drums. Reggie went to get a street dog, and we told him we’d meet him out there. The sound check took a long time, though, and then…”

“Do you remember anything about the person who talked to you?” Julie asked softly. She lifted a hand like she wanted to reach out to him.

“It’s been two and a half decades,” Alex said. He laughed bitterly. “Of course I remember. A woman. I think she was blonde.” He remembered the way she’d raised her eyebrows when the paramedics came, like she was pretending to be shocked but couldn’t be bothered to put any heart into it. He’d hated her for that.

“It was like she’d expected Reggie to die,” Alex said. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It was pretty dark to say to a couple kids. “Or that she didn’t care.”

Julie looked at the space between them, where Reggie was, with a crease in her brow.

“The woman Caleb was talking about,” she said.

“Caleb?” Alex said. “You know, this is the second time you’ve said a name with no context. If I’m helping you, maybe I should know everything?”

Julie looked like a cat caught on the counter.

“Caleb is the ghost who tried to steal your guys’ souls,” she said. “We tricked him into talking a little about ghosts who are as powerful as him, and what we got was that there’s some woman he doesn’t like.”

“And this… Willie?” Alex asked. “A friend of yours?”

“He’s…” Julie looked upset. Reggie thrust the pad of paper under Alex’s nose.

 _A friend of yours_ , it read.

Alex looked up at Julie’s face.

“A friend,” he repeated quietly.

“He’s your boyfriend,” Julie said softly. She smiled impishly. “Apparently he ran you over with a skateboard when you met.”

Alex looked down.

He wasn’t out, not to anyone but a handful of friends and those few professionals who needed to know, specifically his agent and his therapist. He’d tried, once, to ease himself into it. He’d thought he had all the support he needed.

Then the band broke up, and there wasn’t anybody left to stand by him when the world inevitably turned on him or ignored him, just like his parents had.

 _The world is different now_ , his sister said. _The community has practically started over._

She was young enough she didn’t really get why that made it worse.

“Are you ok?” Julie asked.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Nice to think the dead version of me doesn’t have to be alone forever.”

“Even without Willie you wouldn’t be,” Julie said with conviction. “You have us.”

That was the kind of thing Luke used to say. Alex smiled fondly at her.

“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked.

“Can you – can you tell us anything about Luke? What he’s doing now?” Julie asked.

“I have not been the person to ask about Luke for a long time,” Alex said. Julie looked crestfallen, and the pen tapped nervously against the paper. He sighed.

“Give me a day or two,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Julie grinned.

“Thank you!” she burst out, lunging forward to hug him. Alex wasn’t sure if she’d gone through Reggie, or he’d gotten out of her way, or if he was somehow being hugged by a ghost as well. He _did_ know that this felt really weird.

“Um,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He pushed at her shoulders gently, and she pulled away immediately, looking mortified.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t – That was probably really weird for you, and it was weird for me, I just… We missed you.”

Alex ducked his head, feeling vaguely angry that this kid was the first person in a long time to say something like that.

“Thanks,” he said. “Go home, ok? Your dad may be cool with this little visit, but I’m not keeping you past dinner or something.”

“Thank you, Alex,” Julie said fervently. “Here.”

She borrowed the pen and paper from Reggie, scribbling down a phone number and ripping out the page.

“When you find out about Luke,” she said. Alex nodded.

When she left, the pen and paper were still floating. The pen – Reggie – tapped Alex on the shoulder.

 _You ok, dude?_ he’d written.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I mean, I’m doing terribly, because apparently you’re a ghost and I should be too, and my options are a mediocre life or a surprisingly decent death. But you’re here. That’s… that’s not nothing.”

_I really wish I could hug you._

“Yeah,” Alex said. “That’d be nice. Go home, Reg. Just – can you leave the pages?”

Reggie laid the pad of paper down on the coffee table, and then the pen vanished – gone with Reggie, back to the studio, Alex imagined.

Alex brushed his fingers over the familiar shape of Reggie’s handwriting. Never quite his neat script, but not anywhere near as bad as Luke’s messy scratchings, it hadn’t changed in twenty-five years. Because Reggie hadn’t.

Alec sighed and pulled out his phone to dial a number he hadn’t used in years. He’d always wondered if he was being a fool, keeping it, updating it every time somebody told him the number had changed.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Luke,” Alex said. “Have you got a minute?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know more about how I built adult Alex's life, let me know - the timing of his life is hugely relevant, especially since the queer community had to pretty much rebuild after the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s and Sunset Curve broke up in the early 2000s in this universe. It is a downer of a thought, and not one I ever want to build a storyline around because that feels exploitative and insensitive, but it informs the way I write this version of Alex because he didn't get a helpful time skip. (Also don't expect much more than what you just got in terms of this acknowledgment - like I said, I don't believe in building fiction around real life tragedies and cruelties if you are not using it to cope or bring awareness to your own Personal Experience, it's just. Part of who this Alex is. A man who lacked the support he needed to feel safe coming out at a specific time in history.)  
> On a lighter note, clearly my other deeply held Alex belief is that he has strong older sibling energy because he is one. It's less light when you consider what that means for canon Alex and his hypothetical sister, but hey! He has a family member who likes him, yay!  
> I'm honestly so sorry for this chapter but I'm also so proud of it. My only regret is that "Home Is Where My Horse Is" didn't play as big of a role as I wanted it to. Alex's emotions took this chapter on a joyride and didn't give me the keys back.


	8. With Nothing Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke! Alex! Ray! Three men who did not expect to be in a room together! Julie and Reggie are just trying to make it through without getting in trouble or dying of embarrassment and emotional distress.

When she got back from visiting Alex, Julie holed up in her room to finish her homework for the weekend. Reggie leaned against the side of her bed, picking idly at his bass. She’d lifted the “no ghosts in my room” rule considering he had nobody else to hang out with. Flynn was supposed to come over later, to hear how things had gone with Alex, but she’d had homework to do as well.

Reggie had said he wasn’t sure when Willie could come by. Caleb was keeping him on a short leash after Reggie’s disappearing act, which meant they hadn’t even had the chance to update him on the meeting with Alex.

Julie felt kind of guilty about that.

Reggie paused mid-riff, sitting up.

“Did you hear that?”

Julie listened. Then she heard a knock, so loud she could hear it upstairs even though she was sure it came from the front door.

“Flynn would text,” Julie said. She set her math aside, and she and Reggie hurried out of the room as the door opened.

“Hello?” Julie’s dad said as Julie jumped the last few steps. She skidded around the corner, into view of the doorway, and saw a man standing on their doorstep, with wide eyes and a sheepish grimace.

“Luke,” she whispered.

“What are you doing here? Julie, what’s he doing here?” Reggie sounded as panicked as Julie felt.

“This was a bad idea,” he said immediately. Julie tensed before realising he hadn’t even seen her. “I’m sorry. I… This is going to sound crazy, but when I was a kid our band used to practice here, in the shed, and we left some stuff here…”

“Oh, the old keyboard, right? And that bass?”

Luke’s shoulders slumped.

“Yeah,” he said with relief.

Julie’s phone rang. She forced a smile when her dad and Luke turned to look at her. That look of horrified discomfort was back on Luke’s face.

“Hi,” Julie said. “I was just… curious. But I’m gonna get that, you two go ahead and talk.”

“Julie, he’s going to take my stuff!” Reggie exclaimed. Julie glared at him as she discreetly showed him the caller ID: it was Alex.

“Hello?” Julie said. Her dad was still glancing over at her warily. To Julie’s increased horror, he invited Luke in.

“Is this – Julie?”

“Yeah, hi,” Julie said with forced enthusiasm. She couldn’t take her eyes off Luke. She’d known he was an adult, she’d seen the picture, but in person… His hair was shorter, he had traces of stubble on his face, and there were wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He was recognisable, but barely. Even something about the way he held himself felt _wrong_.

“I’m sorry, I called Luke so I could talk to him, but I tried to bring up Reggie – I swear I didn’t say anything. Luke didn’t give me the chance. He just asked if I’d ever moved Reggie’s things and then he hung up.”

Julie realised Alex was panicking.

“Hey, breathe,” she said automatically. She had to stop and consider the weirdness of the moment before she continued. “I’m – I’m actually with him right now.”

“What?”

Alex shouted so loudly Luke and Julie’s dad heard it, looking towards Julie with confusion. Julie gave them a thumbs up.

“What the he-hhmmmm,” Alex cut himself off carefully. Julie rolled her eyes. “What is he thinking? He just showed up there? What does he want? I’m coming over.”

“You _really_ don’t have to do that,” Julie said. This was spiralling out of control very rapidly. She missed the days when, no matter what bad decisions the boys made, at least nobody could see them making them.

The only reply she got from Alex was the beeping noise that told her he’d hung up.

“Ugh, why are you guys so _stupid_ ,” Julie snapped, shoving her phone back into her pocket.

“Everything ok?” her dad asked. Julie glanced nervously at Reggie, who shrugged.

“I can’t exactly tell him anything,” Reggie said. It was a terrible time for him to figure that out, honestly. Julie forced another smile.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just a… school project.”

“He’s coming here,” Reggie said. “That’s really the lie you chose?”

Julie stepped on his foot as she closed the distance between herself and her dad. Luke was still standing awkwardly by the door, watching Julie like she was a tiger that escaped from a zoo.

“So, uh,” Julie said with the brightest tone she could muster. “Who’s this?”

Her dad frowned.

“Jules,” he said. “What’s going on? What are you hiding from me?”

She swallowed. She probably shouldn’t have lied to start off.

“I found some old stuff in the studio,” she said. “Not just the instruments. I figured out they used to belong to this band from the nineties, Sunset Curve. They were Reggie’s – the bassist. He died.”

Luke flinched at the mention of Reggie’s name. Julie swallowed, wishing it wouldn’t look weird to grab Reggie’s hand.

“So the reason this man is here…” Julie’s dad said slowly.

“I didn’t know!” Julie said quickly. “I didn’t even contact him. I went to Alex.”

“And who is Alex?” her dad said sternly.

“Our drummer,” Luke said hoarsely. “He’s – he was our drummer.”

“That’s where you went this morning?” her dad said. “You said you were going out with Flynn.”

“Julie,” Reggie said. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Yes, it is,” Julie said quietly.

“What?” her dad and Luke asked. Julie looked at Reggie, who looked like he’d just been hit.

“I’m telling him everything,” she said. “I can’t afford to get grounded, not now.”

“Ok,” Reggie said. He tried to smile. “At least Ray will know I’m around now?”

“Yeah,” Julie said.

“ _Mija,_ you’re scaring me.”

Julie took a deep breath.

“I didn’t say I was going out with Flynn, dad,” she said. “I said I was going out with a friend. You’ve seen him a few times. In my band.”

“Your hologram friend,” her dad said flatly. Luke sucked in a breath, like he’d figured out where Julie was going with this. Julie couldn’t resist looking at him, but she found nothing of her friend in his face. She looked down, willing back tears. “You said your friend wasn’t local.”

“He’s a ghost, dad,” Julie said. She blinked her eyes dry and looked up. “His name is Reggie.”

Her dad looked at her for a long moment, then turned to look at Luke. The other man was staring at Julie like a dog whose dinner was just out of reach.

“Oh!” Reggie said, poofing away. Julie jerked her head towards where he’d been, alarmed, but it was no use.

There was another knock on the door.

“And that would probably be Alex, because he heard Luke was here and I think he’s here to yell at him,” Julie said. She wished she was more surprised by their terrible decision-making, but even time and grief couldn’t completely change a person.

“Julie,” her dad began, only for Reggie to poof back in. He was holding the Sunset Curve demo.

Julie took it from Reggie, and the two men watched with wide eyes. Mouth dry, Julie opened the jewel case and pulled out the liner notes. She unfolded it to reveal the four members of Sunset Curve at age seventeen, trying desperately to look cool for their photoshoot. She smiled fondly at seventeen-year-old Luke and Alex, touching their faces.

She missed them.

“Here,” Julie said. “And you can Google it. There’s articles about Reggie’s death. You’ve seen him at my shows, you know what he looks like.”

Her dad took it with shaking hands.

“So this man you visited today,” he said finally, looking up.

“You can trust Alex,” Luke spoke up. “He’s a good person. I don’t know your daughter, but… I’m sure she just thought he deserved to know.”

Alex knocked again. Julie rolled her eyes and marched over to open the door.

“You are in as much trouble as Luke is,” she said immediately. Alex looked surprised and slightly amused.

“Okay?” he said. Julie stepped aside, and Alex’s gaze darkened when he saw Luke.

“You! What where you thinking? Oh, hey, Alex called, time to hang up on him and finally go grab Reggie’s things before I even find out what my _living_ friend wants?”

“I knew why you called,” Luke said.

“Must be the only thing you know about me, considering how long it’s been since you so much as spoke to me,” Alex snapped. “We’ll stay friends, Alex, we’ll never be alone, we have each other, Alex.”

“Guys,” Reggie pled uselessly. He hugged himself nervously.

“You didn’t need me dragging you down,” Luke said.

“Dragging – dragging me down? Bobby dropped off the planet after we broke up, we didn’t have Reggie, how could hanging onto the one friend I had left drag me down?”

Luke was quiet. Julie, Reggie, and her dad were all standing still, and Julie didn’t know about the other two, but she was a little afraid the room would explode with tension if she moved.

“You just missed Reggie so much,” Alex said. “You forgot you had living bandmates. That I miss him, too. And I _lost_ him, too.”

“I wasn’t coping, Alex, and your anxiety…” Luke looked away. “I didn’t want you to have to look out for me. You had enough to deal with.”

Julie glanced at Reggie. He was holding himself tightly still, but when he saw her look Reggie reached out. She grabbed his hand.

The movement did break the tension, but instead of exploding it finally deflated. Luke’s eyes fell on Julie’s hand, clasped around what must have looked like empty air.

“He’s here, isn’t he?” Luke said. “Reggie?”

“How did you know he was a ghost?” Alex asked. “I never got the chance to tell you.”

“Caleb,” Julie said, glancing at Reggie.

“He saw us at the club,” Reggie said. “Looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

“He did see a ghost,” Julie said fondly.

“You’re… talking to him?” her dad said carefully.

Julie nodded.

“You have to believe me, please, dad,” she said earnestly. Her dad held up a hand.

“A CD just appeared out of nowhere,” he said. “And you’re right, it’s the same kid in this picture. I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but I don’t want to make things worse for you.”

“Best dad ever,” Reggie said in a stage whisper.

“He really is,” Julie agreed.

All three men looked confused. Julie grinned.

“Reggie thinks you’re a really good dad,” she said. Her dad looked surprised. Alex and Luke let out nearly identical huffs of laughter, then eyed each other warily.

“I think maybe it’s time you all sit down,” Julie’s dad said. “Take some time to talk about this.”

“Is everybody done yelling yet?”

Everybody turned around to see Carlos peering around the corner.

“So dad knows about your ghost boyfriend now?” Carlos asked.

Julie’s mouth dropped open in horror. Reggie let go of her hand and jumped away.

“He is _not_ my boyfriend,” she said. “Don’t even – no.”

“Julie likes Luke,” Reggie added helpfully. Julie elbowed him, mortified, before remembering nobody could hear him anyway. She glared at him just for good measure.

“Good,” her dad said, unaware of the exchange. “For one thing, I don’t know how I feel about you dating a guy who’s been dead twenty-five years.”

Julie glanced at Luke, then hated herself for it. Reggie was the only one who noticed.

“Seriously?” he asked as they all piled into the living room, Julie’s dad interrogating Carlos about his knowledge of ghosts.

“I keep expecting him to be our Luke,” Julie muttered. Reggie’s teasing grin softened at that.

“Yeah, me too,” he admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by far the most chaotic thing I've ever written, and when I was twelve I tried to write a book where all the main characters were also twelve-year-old theatre kids.  
> Don't have a lot to say about this one, except that hopefully any questions that come up here are going to be discussed next chapter now that everybody has cooled down. Luke and Alex's admissions are both drawn heavily from things I have done, so uh. That was a fun thing to realise as I read through this for revision purposes.  
> Sorry about this chapter not being in the morning like usual, but my terrible retail job was extra terrible and ended extra late, and my cat thinks writing should be illegal because she doesn't get pets when I do it. She's staring at me right now wondering why I care more about my computer than her.  
> Up next, there are four conversations that need to happen! It might end up splitting in two and becoming a 17 chapter fic in total but that's only if somebody really runs away with the narrative. That somebody will probably be Luke if it happens since he's had the least time to have emotions in this fic, but we'll see.


	9. I Can Make It Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the style of an early 2000s direct-to-dvd Disney sequel, a series of character-focused vignettes, loosely strung together by a frame plot about the importance of friends and family!  
> There's so much talking in this, oh my god.

“So,” Ray started off as everybody sat around the room. Luke and Alex looked bewildered, and Reggie couldn’t blame them. He knew Ray was a cool dad, but even the party where they debuted “Edge of Great” didn’t compare to “having a conversation with strange men about the ghost my daughter knows.”

To be fair, Reggie didn’t have a _lot_ of experience with cool dads. It was pretty much just Ray.

“How many of you knew about this ghost business before me?”

Reggie raised his hand. Then he remembered that wasn’t going to do anything.

“Hey, Julie, can you get me a pen?” he whispered. Julie stood up.

“Where are you going?” Ray asked sternly.

Julie pointed at Reggie, who waved even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“Reggie needs something to write with,” Julie said.

“Here!” Carlos said helpfully, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and picking up a pen that had been left on the side table to go with it. Julie took the paper and frowned at it.

“Carlos, is this your English homework?”

“I’m rewriting it,” he muttered. Reggie tilted his head, disbelieving.

“Are you?” he said. Julie snorted.

“Go get a notebook,” Ray said tiredly. “Carlos…”

Carlos sheepishly retrieved his homework.

The room was silent as Julie ran out. Ray and Carlos were staring at Luke and Alex, who were sitting next to each other and kept looking anywhere but their old bandmate’s face.

“This is nice,” Reggie said. “All of us in a room together again. It’s been a while, huh?”

There was no answer. Alex coughed.

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “Hey, you guys haven’t really met Ray, have you? You just kind of… shouted in front of him. Well, this is Ray, he’s Julie’s dad, and he’s really cool. We’re very close. We hang out all the time. And Carlos is Julie’s little brother, also super cool. We were going to see if I could play video games with him, but then all this happened, and now we’re in an alternate universe, and I’m not actually sure if we even had that conversation with Carlos.”

The thought made Reggie sad.

“And you haven’t met Flynn yet!” he said quickly. “She’s supposed to come over later, so I bet it will be soon. She’s great, always has Julie’s back. She finds a lot of gigs for us, which is surprising if you think about the fact that she’s also sixteen? I did _not_ know so many LA promoters were willing to work with teenage managers.”

A snort alerted Reggie to Julie’s return.

“Having fun?” she asked Reggie.

“We didn’t want to start without you,” Carlos said, clearly assuming Julie was talking to everyone else. Reggie couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or sarcastic. Possibly both.

“I appreciate that,” Julie said, rolling her eyes as she flopped down next to Reggie and leaned on him. Everyone’s eyes widened as they took in the scene. Reggie picked the pen up and waved it helpfully, like a hello.

“There’s… really a ghost there,” Ray said.

“You said you believed me,” Julie said.

“I did,” Ray said. “And I was telling the truth. But it’s the kind of thing where the proof doesn’t stop being surprising.”

“You have no idea,” Julie muttered with a laugh.

“How – how much of all that were you there for, Reggie?” Alex asked quietly, staring at the pen and paper in Reggie’s hands.

“Not much,” Reggie said instinctively. Julie elbowed him.

“One, write it down,” she said. “Two, don’t downplay it.”

He looked at her pleadingly.

“Remember when this started?” she said softly. “When friends mess up, we tell each other, and then we do it better. Right?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said.

 _I was there for all of it,_ he wrote. _Since Luke came in._

He held it up for them to see. Luke sucked in a sharp breath, and Alex closed his eyes.

“Sorry,” Luke said. “Reggie, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok,” he said, writing it down a beat later.

“So how long have you known this ghost, _mija?”_ Ray asked.

Julie pressed closer to Reggie for a second, then sat up.

“The day I got kicked out of the music program,” she said. “When I was going through mom’s studio for the first time.”

She worked her way through the whole story, stumbling over her words as she carefully edited out Luke and Alex. Reggie wrote down little additions, mostly the things he’d done without her. It was hard to explain without the guys.

Luke frowned as they reached the part of the story with the Hollywood Ghost Club. Reggie figured he knew the timeline was wrong. He didn’t say anything, though, and they made it through the house party before Julie faltered. Reggie had a guess as to why.

Everyone in the room would know the Orpheum hadn’t happened, and only Alex would know why the story rang false. But they’d already covered Caleb’s stamp.

 _I told her about the stamp,_ Reggie wrote hastily. Julie looked guiltily relieved. _She was worried, and she said she’d rather lose me to Caleb than have me not exist at all, and then…_

“The stamps just lifted off,” Julie said. “When I hugged him. Which is weird because I hadn’t been able to do that before.”

“Wait, stamps? Like more than one?” Carlos said.

“What? No. Stamp. One stamp. Singular. Just like there’s… one phantom in Julie and the Phantom.” Julie smiled in that very specific way that meant she was lying.

“Julie, you didn’t go to Caleb, did you?” Luke asked. Reggie tangled his fingers together, trying to breathe normally. Luke sounded scared for Julie, and that would be fine if he knew her, except he didn’t and the reason he was scared was _he went_ to Caleb…

Reggie shoved that scary thought into a tiny little box, because Julie was smart and she’d know when to bring it up and he didn’t need to freak out about it right now.

“No!” Julie said. “No, absolutely not.”

Thankfully, it wasn’t a lie at all, and that was probably the first time Julie’s terrible lies had served them well. Did the hologram thing count? It wasn’t so much a lie as something Julie went along with.

“And this… Caleb,” Ray said. “You’re both safe from him now?”

“Aw,” Reggie said. “Julie, he asked about me.”

Julie squeezed his hand.

“Yeah,” she said. “No more soul stealing for us.”

Reggie was surprised at how smoothly the lie came out. Then again, it wasn’t soul theft they were worried about just then.

“Can we… I’m sorry,” Luke said. “You let us in, and this has got to be a weird day for you. I didn’t even get your name!”

“Ray,” Julie’s dad said quickly, leaning over to shake his hand. “And you’re Luke? Not Luke Patterson?”

Alex laughed, leaning his head against the back of the couch.

“Yeah,” Luke said. His shoulder, the one next to Alex, hunched.

“Please don’t fight again,” Reggie said instinctively. Of course, they couldn’t hear him as Alex made his introductions.

“Could we get a band meeting for a moment?” Luke asked. “It’s overdue.”

Alex looked sideways at Luke, then nodded slowly.

“Come on, Carlos,” Ray said, ignoring the boy’s complaints as he ushered him out. He paused by the door.

“Julie? Let them talk, _mija_.”

Julie jerked in her seat like she’d been hit.

“Right,” she said. “Right. I… Will you be all right alone, Reggie?”

Her eyes were pleading with him not to send her away, but when Reggie looked past her at Luke and Alex, his oldest bandmates looked nervous. Besides, he got the feeling Ray wanted to talk to her.

“I’m never alone, Julie,” he said.

“Right,” she said. “You have them.”

Reggie’s eyes widened as she turned away, realising his mistake.

“And you!” he blurted. She glanced back at him, a tiny smile on her face.

“Thanks,” she said. “Good luck.”

“Yeah, I’m probably gonna need it,” Reggie said. “They’re _so old_. How do you even talk to people that old?”

“You talk to my dad all the time, Reg,” Julie said. “I think you’ll do fine.”

Then it was just them. Sunset Curve. Well, minus Bobby, but he most definitely did _not_ count anymore, the dirty thief. Reggie conveniently ignored the fact that he hadn’t done that here.

They sat in silence at first. Finally, Alex sighed.

“Did you have anything in mind for this meeting, or were we both going to stare at Reggie’s pen for a while?”

 _I’ve got a lot to say,_ Reggie pointed out. If he said it out loud first, well, nobody was here to know. _I thought maybe you guys would want to talk?_ _Communication is very important._

Alex let out a tiny huff of laughter.

“Ok,” he said. “I really think you should start, Luke.”

Luke did not look impressed by this, but he didn’t say no.

“I was supposed to look out for you guys,” he said quietly. “You had your anxiety and Reggie was… Reggie. Then he died and I couldn’t do that anymore. I knew you were having a worse time of it than I was, I wasn’t gonna put my pain onto you.”

“Like me and Julie,” Reggie said aloud. He started to write, hoping to impart some of Julie’s wisdom from when they talked after he ran away, but Alex spoke first.

“It never occurred to you that we help each other? And maybe I didn’t want to be alone?”

“Bobby…”

“Bobby was always the worst at emotions, and you know it,” Alex said. Reggie watched, rapt, as his friends finally started to look at each other. “Look, I didn’t need you to be my therapist. I wanted my friend to give me a hug.”

“By the time I figured that out, I also figured it was too late,” Luke said.

“Not gonna lie, Luke, you probably could have had this conversation with me much sooner. Twenty years is really pushing it,” Alex said. “But it’s not like it was easy without you. I’d rather have tried.”

Reggie sniffled a little.

“I’m so proud of you guys,” he said. “Oh!” He hurried to write that down, lightly crossing over the paragraph he’d written trying to explain the thing with Julie without getting into the alternate universe thing. He didn’t really want to explain that to Luke without his friends’ backup.

Luke laughed when Reggie held his note up.

“Thanks,” Alex said. Reggie studied him for a moment, trying to decide if he was being sarcastic or not, then he gave up. It was hard enough to tell with Regular Alex. Anyway, Alex looked like he was getting ready to say something else.

“Earlier, when I asked how you knew Reggie was a ghost,” Alex said quietly. “Julie just said ‘Caleb’. Luke… what did she mean?”

Luke sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“His whole thing is a party that never ends. What do you _think_ the kid meant?”

“Hey,” Reggie said. “Look, if she’s a kid, I’m a kid, and we – oh, right.”

It wasn’t _easy_ to forget they were adults now. Luke and Alex’s appearances alone were enough to remind him. But it was easy to forget they didn’t remember the same things Reggie did.

Like Julie.

Alex, of course, was on something else entirely.

“You sold your _soul_ to the ghost of bad musicals?” he said incredulously.

“Actually, Caleb’s shows are pretty good,” Reggie had to admit.

The guys were arguing over him again. Reggie hugged his knees to his chest nervously. Was this just how it would be now?

“Look, you know me,” Luke was saying. “When I play, it’s all about the performance, the audience… The group. When I met Caleb, I hadn’t had a band in years.”

“Yeah, but… a ghost band? You could’ve had a normal mid-life crisis, started a new band with living people…”

“Lifers,” Reggie put in helpfully.

“Luke, why would you –“ Alex paused, closing his eyes. “Ghosts. Reggie.”

“What?” Reggie dropped his pen. “Wait. Wait, it’s my fault?”

Both men started, staring at the fallen pen.

“It’s not your fault, Reggie,” Luke said quickly. “It’s not – I just figured if you were out there anywhere, ghost musicians were a good place to start.”

“You went to Caleb because of me,” Reggie said. “You…” His throat didn’t want to work anymore.

“Reg?” Alex said slowly. “Hey, are you still there? We don’t know what you’re thinking, remember, or what you’re saying.”

“Reggie, I swear, I know I messed up,” Luke said. His eyes flicked wildly around where Reggie was, trying to pick out something to tell him where his old friend was. “That’s on me. I probably should have just gone to therapy like everybody else.”

“You really should have,” Alex said.

“Is this the time?” Luke asked, but his tone was playful. Reggie relaxed his death grip around his knees, just a bit.

“Apparently, you need somebody to tell you when you’re making bad choices,” Alex said. “Because you’ve made a lot of them since the band broke up.”

“Oh, I’ve made bad choices?” Luke said, grinning. “How about that time you played for –“

“I needed to make money somehow!”

Reggie smiled as the argument drifted into playful banter territory. There was still an edge to it that he didn’t recognise, but they were just teasing each other now. That was the same.

 _I really wish you’d never met Caleb,_ he wrote. _But maybe Julie and I can help?_

Luke and Alex grew quiet when Reggie took the paper over to them, crossing the room for the first time.

“It’s not your job, Reg,” Luke said. “You and Julie are… a little young for this stuff.”

 _I got free of Caleb,_ Reggie wrote, annoyed. _You haven’t. We’re the same age._

“Are we, though?” Alex said.

 _Yes!!!_ Reggie considered his answer, then added a few more exclamation points. And then he underlined it.

“Ok.” Alex said it the way he usually did when he was humouring Reggie.

“I know you’re just saying that,” Reggie said. Alex, of course, did not answer.

“Reggie, something doesn’t add up,” Luke said. “What you were talking about, with Caleb… all that happened since I saw you?”

 _That’s complicated_ , Reggie wrote, still hoping to avoid telling Luke everything without Julie there. He took the paper back and flopped back down on the couch he’d been sitting on earlier.

“I think I know,” Alex said slowly. “It’s what Julie and Reggie were talking about when they came to visit.”

“Can we please wait for Julie?” Reggie blurted. He shook his head, annoyed with himself, and wrote it down hastily.

“Ok,” Alex said. “Luke?”

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Yeah, so long as I get some answers I don’t care who they come from.”

Julie stared back at Reggie, Alex, and Luke as long as she could, itching to be in there with her bandmates. Her dad led her and Carlos to the kitchen, and as Julie faced him she felt her gut flutter with nerves. He looked serious.

“Julie,” her dad said.

“Hey, Dad, want to know how I found out about the ghost?” Carlos said brightly.

“Carlos,” her dad said in that same stern tone. Carlos shrugged at Julie.

“Dad, I’m really sorry I lied, but after mom… I thought you’d think I was crazy. And then with Caleb, I know I could have proved it to you by then, but I didn’t want to worry you.”

“ _Mija_ , I understand. I’m a little frustrated that you were in danger and didn’t tell me, but I understand what you were thinking. What I don’t understand is why you visited the home of a complete stranger without telling me!”

Julie cringed, unable to hold his gaze.

“Alex wouldn’t hurt me,” she said.

“They seem nice enough,” her dad admitted. “But what did you have to go off of? What Reggie told you? _Mija_ , he knew them twenty-five years ago. People change.”

“Believe me, I know,” Julie said, thinking of the way Alex and Luke had shouted at each other. The way they hadn’t even touched while sitting next to each other.

The way their eyes passed right over her, because here they’d never been friends.

“Dad, it’s hard to explain.”

“Can you at least try?” he asked.

“I know them,” Julie said slowly. If her dad knew what she and Reggie were really dealing with, she didn’t know what he’d do. They couldn’t afford him trying to keep them from figuring things out. “Not… now, I know. But I do know who they were at seventeen.”

“Wait! Do you have some kind of mind-link with Reggie?” Carlos burst out excitedly.

“Yes! Kind of,” Julie said, gesturing at Carlos gratefully. “It’s weird, we don’t get it either.” She nodded her head for emphasis.

She felt vaguely guilty at the lie, especially after her dad had taken relatively well to the truth. But Carlos had given her an out, and it was the best way.

“You didn’t mention that earlier,” her dad said.

“It only happened recently. After the stamps,” Julie said. She shrugged and smiled up at him nervously. “Power of friendship, I guess.”

“I wish you’d told me, Julie,” her dad said.

“Me too!” Carlos put in. “I looked up that guy Alex, guess which albums he’s played on!”

Julie absolutely did not want to know about Luke and Alex’s careers. It was a small, private selfishness, and she wanted to cling to it.

“I’m gonna check on the – on Reggie,” she said. “To see if they have any last questions for me.”

 _Like about the world where they died,_ she finished mentally.

“Be careful, _mija_ ,” her dad said, but he didn’t insist on coming with her. Instead, he started talking to Carlos, saying something about a French dip.

Julie knocked on the wall and poked her head around the corner.

“Everybody ok?” she asked.

“We talked a lot of things out,” Reggie said enthusiastically. Julie frowned. Despite his bright tone of voice, he looked like he’d been crying.

“You ok?” she asked. She touched his arm gently, glancing warily over her shoulder at Luke and Alex. They both looked uncomfortable, which she was sure they deserved.

Reggie curled his shoulders inward.

“Luke met Caleb because he was hoping I was still out there,” he whispered.

“Oh, Reggie,” Julie said, sitting next to him and hugging him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her.

“They were asking about…” Reggie made a face. “The other timeline? Our memories? We still don’t know what this is, do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Julie sighed. She looked at Luke and Alex.

“So,” Luke said. “Why doesn’t your story about Caleb’s club add up?”

Julie took a deep breath, and explained about the morning she and Reggie had found everything wrong.

“So, the weird parts of the story are there because they happened to us, but not here,” Julie said. “Or… something.”

“So you tracked down Alex and I because we were in your ghost band, too?” Luke said. Julie bristled at his dismissive tone.

“I didn’t know what else to do!” she snapped. “We couldn’t go poking around Caleb’s club anymore, unless we wanted to end up like you!”

Luke stared at her, mouth open.

“We don’t want you to die,” Julie said. “It’s just… if there’s a way to get back, we have to take it. We don’t want to be alone.”

In the silence after her words, Julie’s phone buzzed.

“It’s Flynn,” Julie said. She looked up at Reggie. “She’s on her way over.”

“Oh, good,” Reggie said.

“Who’s Flynn?” Alex asked.

“What, you thought you were the only person we asked to help out?” Julie said with a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really wanted to bring the dream team back but this chapter got. Absurdly long. Also I've been awake since one thirty in the morning, and I keep nearly falling asleep, so I found a natural stopping place in order to make sure this chapter got out on time, and the dream team chapter will not be written on sleep-deprivation because they deserve my full attention and not an eight-page paragraph of just the letter j.  
> Also, re: Flynn as the band's manager, Reggie is very complimentary. I do not think these people actually say "oh yes a sixteen year old is in charge of this band that makes sense," I think Flynn says something like "hey this band went from unknown to opening for a big name at a major venue and you will talk to whoever Julie says you talk to" and there's not much you can say against that. This also means that, in this universe, Reggie is potentially lying because the Orpheum never happened and Flynn does not have this leverage. However, I don't think anybody is going to call him out on that.  
> Also Flynn is fairly compensated for her efforts, because Julie is an ethical person, and friends don't exploit friends' labour.  
> Last thing, my notes for this chapter feature the line "Ray does his best to channel his inner Tía Victoria" and I just was very proud of that line. He's trying very hard. He does a good job.


	10. We Play Pretend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willie and Julie have to finally figure out how they feel about dealing with these adult versions of their loved ones. Alex and Luke have to figure out what on earth they're supposed to do about these children who apparently want to be paranormal investigators. Flynn and Reggie conspire to achieve hugs.

Willie was trying to stay away from Julie’s house as much as he could. However, Caleb had been acting oddly all day, almost distracted, and even if it meant he’d be angrier later it at least gave Willie the chance to slip away now.

There was nobody in the studio, so he made his way up to the house. He hesitated at the door.

It had been a long time since he’d been in a house. Sure, rich people’s houses, but those type of nearly-empty mansions were practically begging ghosts like Willie to show up. A family home?

Well. It had been a while.

But it was Julie’s family home, and that meant Reggie was there, and they were the only people who knew first-hand what he was going through. With Flynn, they were the only people who knew at all, and therefore the only people who could help figure it out.

He passed the kitchen, where a man and a boy were talking. They glanced up every so often to stare at another room, like they were expecting something, so Willie started there.

He froze in the doorway.

Hair cut short, face tired and aged, not a trace of the pink he wore so often – but Willie would know Alex’s face in any circumstance.

“Willie!” Reggie’s voice made him blink, and the hug he received seconds later helped him snap out of it.

“Willie?” Julie asked brightly, getting up as well.

“Wait, Willie?” Alex said.

“Is anyone going to tell me who Willie is?” said the man Willie had barely noticed, sat next to Alex on the couch. After a moment of study, he realised it must be Luke.

“I would, but you don’t listen to me,” Reggie said, pulling away from Willie. Willie patted him on the back in sympathy.

“You know he can’t hear you, right?” he asked.

“Still. Do you know how hard it is to give people closure when they can’t even hear you?” Reggie said.

“Did you forget we could write notes again?”

“It’s not the same,” Reggie pouted.

“What’s he saying?” Julie said.

“I still don’t know who he is, though I’m assuming another ghost. How many ghost friends do you have? Not including us, of course,” Luke said. Alex smacked him lightly on the arm.

“Would you grow up?” he asked.

“Willie was teasing me,” Reggie told Julie helpfully.

“Ok, we’re having two conversations right now, and we’re all just going to pause,” Julie said loudly. Everyone froze. Willie laughed at the sheepish looks on Luke, Alex, and Reggie’s faces. Apparently, some things really didn’t change.

“Willie is a ghost we know,” Julie said. She glanced at Alex. “The way we remember it, he’s Alex’s boyfriend.”

“Oh, really?” Luke said with a note of delight.

“Wait, did she – did you tell _Alex_ that? Reggie!”

Reggie just shrugged at Willie, who gaped at him.

“I notice nobody’s talking about Julie and Luke,” he said pointedly.

“I tried,” Reggie said. “But, Willie, they can’t hear us.”

“Funny,” Willie muttered.

“Reggie! Willie! What did I just say about multiple conversations?” Julie said. “Look, we’re going to wait for Flynn and then we’ll talk about what we’re doing next.”

“Flynn’s coming?” Willie asked.

“Yeah, she hasn’t heard about Alex or Luke yet,” Reggie said.

“So you see this Willie guy, too?” Luke asked as Willie perched cross-legged on the coffee table. Reggie sat back down next to Julie.

“No,” Julie admitted. “Probably you’ve seen him more than me.”

“What?” Alex asked. “Wait, do we know this kid somehow? You said he was dead when… the other me met him.”

“This is a great conversation to listen in on,” Willie remarked in a cheerful tone, trying to ignore the twist in his gut.

Julie cast a helpless glance at Reggie.

“Can I – is Willie ok with them knowing?” she asked.

“Like she said,” Willie said, carefully maintaining his easy smile and casual posture. “Luke’s probably already seen me around, or the other me anyway.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a yes,” Reggie said. “Look, you can say no, ok?”

“Go ahead,” Willie said. “We’re trying to get back to a world where they already know, right?”

Reggie looked doubtful, but he turned back to Julie and nodded.

“Willie’s one of Caleb’s ghosts,” Julie said. “He stole Willie’s soul. If – if we can’t get home, I was hoping we could at least figure out how to get him free.”

Willie fell off the coffee table.

“I don’t remember that part of the plan,” he said.

“I think she just came up with it herself,” Reggie said, sounding proud.

“No, no, nonono, Alex would never forgive me if you guys got hurt trying to help me,” Willie said as he got to his feet. “Let’s just focus on getting back. There has to be a way, right?”

“I mean, there was a way we got here,” Reggie agreed.

“Don’t you already know how to get people out of Caleb’s control?” Luke asked. “The stamp.”

“I could see Reggie,” Julie said. “We already had a connection. I don’t know if I can help Willie the same way.”

“Hey, Jules!” came a voice from down the hall. “Your dad said you had visitors?” Flynn raised her eyebrows as she came into view, eyeing Luke and Alex dubiously.

“Flynn!” Julie exclaimed. She scrambled over and hugged her friend tightly. Flynn hugged back, though Willie could see her looking thoughtfully over Julie’s shoulder, taking stock of who was in the room.

“Who are these guys?” Flynn asked as they pulled apart.

“Flynn, this is Luke and Alex,” Julie said.

“From Sunset Curve,” Flynn said. “Why are they in your house? Follow-up, do they know yet about…” She moved her head a little and raised her eyebrows, like ghosthood was some kind of secret conspiracy. Willie snorted.

“Yeah, I told Alex everything earlier,” Julie said. “Luke knows… pretty much everything?”

“There’s more?” he said plaintively, sounding surprisingly like the version of Luke that Willie knew. Willie and Reggie exchanged amused glances.

“Not much,” Julie said, clearly having caught that same tone of voice if her smile told Willie anything. “But when we talked to Alex he told us what changed.”

Luke glanced at Alex.

“You remember why we didn’t get street dogs with Reggie?” Alex asked quietly.

“A sound check,” Luke said.

“So it’s not that somebody made Reggie die,” Flynn said slowly. “Somebody made sure you two survived. Julie… look, I’m not as into the science fiction stuff as Reggie or, I don’t know, Carlos. But if somebody really time travelled, then what could we do?”

“Maybe it just made a new timeline,” Reggie said quickly. “Maybe our band is still out there. With the Julie and Reggie from this universe!”

“Dude,” Willie said. “Write it down, nobody but Julie can hear you.”

“Oh, right,” Reggie said, scrawling it hastily. Flynn looked down at the paper.

“Is this Reggie?” she asked. Reggie waved the hand holding the pen.

“I hope you’re right,” she said. Luke moved forward cautiously to take the paper, and he didn’t speak until after he’d shown it to Alex.

“Whatever is going on,” he said. “If you’re right, and that tech was involved, she knew what was going to happen, and she let it happen to Reggie. You already mentioned a woman on Caleb’s level. This is _dangerous_.”

“Luke’s right, you kids shouldn’t be anywhere near this,” Alex said.

“Kids? Yeah, all right, the only over-eighteens other than you are dead, so it’s hard to tell if they count,” Flynn said. “Wait, is Willie here? I was kind of assuming this was a group meeting, but nobody actually said…”

Willie smiled at that.

“Thanks,” he said, ignoring the way Reggie nudged him. He could respond aloud if he wanted to.

“Yeah, he’s here,” Julie said.

“Ok, cool. Still, ghosts, not technically adults, but they’ve been around a while. The point is, _Julie_ is the only person who ever beat Caleb. And did she tell you about the Orpheum? She technically did it twice.”

“The Orpheum?” Luke and Alex said together.

“We thought it was your unfinished business,” Julie explained. “That if we played there, you could pass on. Caleb’s stamp couldn’t hurt you.”

Luke laughed.

“I couldn’t go back there even now,” he said. “I can’t imagine how your band managed to play there when they all died.”

“It was your dream,” Julie said defensively.

“Yeah, but…” Luke shook his head.

Willie wasn’t sure if his input would be welcome, but he was pretty sure he had an answer.

 _You didn’t lose each other at the Orpheum_.

Luke eyed the page warily.

“I take it you’re Willie,” Alex said, his gaze landing just barely to the left of Willie’s own eyes.

Willie swallowed, wiggling his pen like he was waving.

Alex smiled shakily.

“You’re probably right,” he said. “We were especially close-knit then. Didn’t matter where we played.”

“Just so long as we played together,” Luke said. He looked up. “Where was Bobby in all this?”

Julie and Reggie exchanged glances. Willie tried not to laugh.

“Carrie’s dad stole all your music and said it was his,” Flynn said. “He recorded ‘My Name Is Luke’ apparently, which is wild because Julie says he changed his name to Trevor? I don’t know. I bet your version is better.”

“You’ve heard his version of that song?” Julie asked.

“Duh. It used to be on the radio all the time, remember?” Flynn paused. “Ok, maybe not. Whatever.”

“We need to focus,” Julie said abruptly, holding her hands out like she was telling the flow of thoughts to stop. “The woman at the Orpheum in ’95. Luke, do you remember much? A name, what she looked like? Alex said blonde, but if there’s anything else…”

“I still think you should stay away from this,” Luke said.

“If hanging out with ghosts has taught me anything, the dangerous stuff usually comes for us, not the other way around,” Julie said.

“Ooh,” Willie said, delighted in spite of the tension. Reggie and Flynn had identical looks of pride on their faces.

Luke and Alex exchanged another glance. Alex tilted his head, and Luke nodded.

“Fine,” he said. “If your dad is all right with us staying in touch with you, which I would guess is a big if, we will help you. If he is not, we do it ourselves.”

Now it was Julie and Reggie’s turn to glance at each other.

“All right,” Julie said. She turned, head lifted high, and stalked out of the room.

“How likely is it her dad will say yes?” Willie asked.

“Oh, Ray’s really cool,” Reggie said. Then his face dropped. “He might still be mad that Julie didn’t tell him where we went this morning.”

That wasn’t a good enough answer for Willie.

 _Flynn, is her dad going to say yes?_ Willie wrote quickly, practically shoving the paper at her. She gave the air past his shoulder a quick glare, but read without complaint.

“He lets Julie do a lot of things,” Flynn said. “After the coffeehouse, he didn’t ground her even though she snuck out. I think we’re ok.”

Willie laughed in relief.

He hadn’t wanted to be in this alone, or worse: trying to work with an Alex who couldn’t see him.

“You guys ok?” Flynn asked.

“What?” Luke said. Flynn rolled her eyes.

“Do I look like I talk to strange men and ask them about their emotions? No. I’m busy with my ghost friends.”

“Wait, can you see them?” Alex said. Flynn rolled her eyes so hard her head went with it.

“Yes, that’s why they’re writing notes for me,” she said. “Look, I’m putting up with you two because Julie and the guys say it’s important, but I don’t remember ghost you. This is a business relationship.”

She pointedly turned her back on Luke and Alex. That also meant she turned her back on Willie and Reggie, but Willie assumed that had been an accident.

“Wait, am I one of the guys?” he asked as the two ghosts leaned over the paper to scrawl out a quick _Fine, thanks_ to Flynn.

Reggie tilted his head like Willie had said something particularly Reggie-like.

“Yeah?” he said. “I mean, you kind of have been for a while.”

Willie paused in the middle of the ‘k’ in ‘thanks.’

“I really appreciate that, man,” he said finally. “I – thanks.”

It had been a long time since he belonged with anybody. He belonged _to_ Caleb, but that was a different preposition altogether.

He considered his note to Flynn for a minute, then decided to add something.

_If I had to hang out with a couple lifers who can’t even see me, I’m glad it was you and Julie._

He shoved it at Flynn before he could chicken out. She read the note, then clutched it to her chest.

“You _guys_ ,” she said. “Imagine I’m hugging you, ok? Actually, just – just hug each other. You need it.”

Reggie came in for the hug, arms raised, and Willie didn’t have the heart to deny either of them. He carefully ignored the quiet laughter coming from the two men on the other side of the room.

Julie came back to see Reggie hugging air. Willie, then.

“Please tell me that’s a good hug and not because something _else_ happened,” Julie said.

“Flynn wanted to hug us,” Reggie said.

“I delegated my hugging duties,” Flynn said loftily. “If you can’t do something yourself, make your ghost friends do it for you.”

“Right,” Julie said, hanging her arm around Flynn’s shoulders and leaning against her as she looked at Luke and Alex.

“Dad says we can stay in touch, as long as I let him know when I’m talking to you,” Julie said. “Satisfied?”

“Not really, but I made a deal,” Luke said.

“I want to know what happened,” Alex agreed.

“Good,” Julie said. “So you’ll see what you can find out about her on your end, and we’ll look on ours, and you _will_ call me if you find anything, right?”

“Will you tell us when you find something?” Alex asked. “Or will you hide it because you don’t want us stopping you?”

“I’ll tell you,” Julie said, mad at herself for the little sting of betrayal she felt. Of _course_ he’d ask that, and if it was any other adult her answer would be different. But it was Luke and Alex. She wouldn’t hide things from them, even now. “I promise.”

Willie lifted the pad of paper in the air, showing a new note.

_Did you remember the tech’s name, Luke?_

Julie, Flynn, and Reggie looked at him expectantly.

“It’s been years,” Luke said. “I think… Was it some kind of flower?”

“I think that was the bartender Bobby flirted with,” Alex supplied. Julie rolled her eyes at the mention of Bobby. Between what he’d done to the band and his daughter being Carrie, it was weird sometimes to think that Julie had actually really liked Bobby when she was growing up.

“Uh… Eve, maybe? Eva?”

Reggie jumped. When Julie turned to look at him, she saw that Willie’s pen was moving fast.

 _Ava?_ His note read.

“Ava?” Julie asked. “Was that it?”

“He – Willie knows her?” Luke said slowly.

Willie was writing again. Flynn, Reggie and Julie crowded around, and Luke and Alex even came closer to peer over their shoulders.

_I saw her once when I was still new to being dead. The first time I ever saw Caleb he was arguing with a woman. Afterwards he greeted me and said something about “Don’t mind Ava, she won’t be back.” I never knew anything else about her, so I didn’t know she was as powerful as him._

“So this is probably her, then,” Julie said. “And she _definitely_ has history with Caleb. Could that be why she did this, do you think? Because Caleb wanted the guys?”

“But why only Luke and I?” Alex said. “It’s pretty obvious we’re not much without Reggie.”

“Aww,” Reggie said, staring at him with wide eyes. “Dude! That’s so sweet.”

“Maybe we just gotta ask her?” Flynn suggested.

“No!” Alex and Luke exclaimed.

“Look, _we’ll_ go looking,” Luke said. “Then we’ll tell you what we find out. If this woman – ghost – whatever – if she scares Caleb, there’s a good reason. Stay put. We’ll call, all right?”

Julie still wished she could go track this Ava down herself, but the care in his voice at least soothed her. Yes, he wasn’t her Luke, but there was some proof he could have been!

Which reminded her of one last question, as Luke and Alex finally started to leave. She followed them through the house, letting them stop by to thank her dad for being so ridiculously supportive, and stepped outside to watch as Alex got into his car.

“Luke!” Julie called before he could get much further than the front door. He turned, looking puzzled.

“Can I ask you something?”

Behind her, she heard a little “ooh!” When she turned, she saw Reggie pushing what she assumed was Willie back through the door. Julie rolled her eyes. Looking back at Luke, she saw he looked amused.

“Sure you can,” he said. Julie was grateful he didn’t ask what her little spin had been about.

“When – when you first came in, you kept staring at me,” Julie said.

“I’m so sorry,” he said immediately. “If I made you uncomfortable –“

“No! No, I just wondered why.”

Luke’s face softened. It reminded Julie of how her dad and Tía Victoria looked when Julie admitted to missing her mom.

“You were wondering if I remembered you?”

He even sounded like her dad, or maybe Mrs Harrison when she’d been trying to coax Julie back into music, or like any kind, compassionate adult. Julie shrugged.

“I was staring because Alex said a girl who used our old studio came to his house, but I didn’t give him the chance to really explain. I was wondering how much you knew about Reggie.”

“Oh,” Julie said. She glanced over at the studio, sitting empty and quiet. She and Reggie had only used it to practice “Home Is Where My Horse Is,” and that only because it was the only song that would be proof Reggie was real. Neither one had been able to get the courage up to play anything else.

“You all right?”

Julie turned back toward him with a smile.

“I’d probably be wondering that, too. Mystery solved. Two mysteries! Wow, we’ll… we’ll figure this all out in no time. Real detectives, am I right?”

“Julie,” Luke said. “I’m not him.”

Julie’s smile disappeared.

“I know,” she said just before her throat tightened.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Julie smiled weakly at him, but this time it was sincere.

“Good luck,” she said. “Finding Ava.”

He nodded.

“Take care, ok, kid?” Luke said. He reached out like he wanted to squeeze her shoulder, then curled his hand into a fist and stepped back.

“Bye,” Julie said, ducking back into the house as quickly as she could.

She startled when a piece of paper torn from the pad appeared at her side.

_You ok?_

“Yeah,” Julie said. “Yeah, I just… do you have time to hang out? Just the four of us?” Flynn and Reggie were both standing in the hall a little further away, watching her.

“Sure,” Flynn said.

 _I can stay,_ Willie wrote.

Julie looked at Reggie, who smiled back at her for a moment before blinking in surprise.

“Oh, wait, are you asking me? Am I supposed to have something else to do?”

“No, Reg,” Julie said with a laugh. “I just… didn’t want to assume. I was thinking we’d look up the guys? Hear what Sunset Curve got to record?”

“Oh,” Reggie said. “Yeah. Yeah, I think… I’d like that.”

They went up to Julie’s room. As various objects around the room shifted slightly, with Flynn keeping a watchful eye on the movements to make sure Willie didn’t get into anything secret, Julie opened Youtube on her laptop.

The first result for Sunset Curve was “Unsaid Emily.”

“He did it,” Julie said, the tears she’d been holding back most of the day finally hitting her.

Reggie rested his chin on her shoulder.

“Yeah, he did,” he said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To add insult to injury, "We Play Pretend" was not the original chapter title, and then I got "Perfect Harmony" stuck in my head as I was typing up that last conversation. I feel like it enhances the pain and catharsis. You're welcome I guess?  
> I feel a little sorry for anybody who was hoping Luke's staring meant something about his memories - clearly, Julie did too - but there's poignant and then there's skeevy, and I would like to stay on the good side of that line. Anyway, Luke is only about 60 percent sure what Julie's deal with him in particular is, but it's enough percent sure that he know he needs to talk to her about it, and Julie is aware that she's setting herself up for disaster by hoping for her Luke to shine through. Good job on communication, you two!  
> I will not apologise for the preposition pun. It is so incredibly niche, and "a different proposition" probably isn't a commonly used phrase when I think about it, but I was so proud of it.  
> Next up, we finally know a name! Will Luke and Alex deliver on their investigation, or will Julie and the dream team have to take matters into their own hands yet again? (Probably not a hard guess, I like my genre conventions)


	11. Better Wake Those Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynn and Julie are just about done waiting for Alex and Luke to find Ava, but before they can go looking, Ava finds them.

Flynn could barely focus on school that week. She knew Julie was keeping her phone on, and could see her sticking her hand in her pocket every so often, like she was hoping it would start to vibrate under her touch.

It got so bad Mrs Harrison actually called them out on it.

“Is everything all right?” she asked when she had them stay after class on Thursday. “You girls have been distracted all week. Neither one of you have produced work up to your usual standards.”

“Uh…” Julie said.

Flynn was _not_ letting Julie pick the lie. Julie had told her about the mind-link excuse. Sure, ghosts were real, but a person had to draw the line somewhere. They were all very lucky Ray had bought that one.

“We’re waiting on an important call,” Flynn said. Keep it simple. “Julie and the Phantom stuff.”

She pretended not to notice Julie flinch.

“And you didn’t tell them not to call during class?” Mrs Harrison said sternly.

“Mrs Harrison, this could be Julie’s big break,” Flynn said seriously.

“Flynn!” Julie hissed. Flynn shrugged at her.

“Look, we didn’t want to say anything because, like, we don’t want to jinx anything,” Flynn said, picking up speed. “But if we get this call, things are _really_ going to change for Julie and Reggie, and they probably won’t call during school but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop being excited about it. You know? It’s probably the biggest moment of our lives. I say our because I am obviously going to be working closely with Julie and we’re talking about maybe doing a duet? It’s in the works.”

Mrs Harrison sighed.

“Try to at least bring some of that energy to class tomorrow?” she asked. “I know how it is, when your career is first getting started. But you have a lot of time ahead of you to make it big. Take advantage of what’s happening now.”

Julie and Flynn muttered agreements and hurried from the room. As soon as they were far enough away, Flynn groaned dramatically.

“I can’t take it, Julie. Have they said anything?”

“Alex texted last night,” Julie said. “I told you.”

“Yeah, and he said _nothing_ ,” Flynn said. “There’s really no other word? We’ve learned, like, nothing at all?”

Julie shrugged. “Not unless you count the fact that Alex texts like a dad.”

“To be fair, he is that old.”

Julie and Flynn paused to grimace at that thought. Julie pulled out her phone. Flynn considered pointing out that they had another class, but she was dying for something to change.

“I keep hoping maybe I just accidentally shut it off, and that’s why I haven’t heard,” Julie said. But her phone was on, and stubbornly free of relevant notifications. Flynn pulled Julie in for a hug.

Just when Julie wrapped her arms around Flynn, Flynn felt something buzz against her back.

“Julie!” she shouted as Julie pulled back, unlocking her phone frantically.

“It’s Alex, he texted! He…” Julie frowned. Flynn peered over her shoulder.

“I didn’t even know you _could_ buttdial on a smartphone,” Flynn said.

 _Scs dabgerus stay aqay_.

“Wait,” Julie said slowly. The bell rang, and neither girl bothered to suggest going to class. Julie pulled up her phone keyboard, tapping out the same message slowly.

“Julie?” Flynn asked.

“’Aqay’ is only one letter off from ‘away’ and q is right next to w,” Julie explained. “Dabgerus…”

“Dangerous,” Flynn finished. “And s-c-s?”

Julie moved her thumb over the phone, never quite touching the keyboard.

“Here,” she said. “S is next to a. C and v… A.”

“They found Ava,” Flynn said. “Oh. My god. They found Ava, and Alex butt-texted you a warning!”

“Pretty sure it was just bad typing,” Julie said.

“I’m trying to keep it light, Jules,” Flynn said. “This is actually really bad.”

“I know,” Julie said. “Dad’s going to be furious if I miss.”

“We’re already skipping one class,” Flynn said. “We might as well. If we’re lucky, we get you home where you belong and some other version of you has to deal with it.”

“You know that’s… your other version of me, right?” Julie asked.

Flynn draped her arm around Julie’s waist, leading her to one of the side doors.

“Not so long as you’re the one who’s here,” Flynn said. “I’m sure your Flynn is taking really good care of my Julie. You obviously need it.”

Julie laughed.

“Do we have a way to get the guys?” Flynn asked as they ducked out of the school. “Wait, where are we going?”

They paused, just barely out in the sun. Julie looked at Flynn desperately. Flynn wracked her brain for a solution, because there was no way they could go back in and sit through the rest of their classes with this much hanging in the balance.

A movement on the other side of the street caught Flynn’s eye. There was a woman standing there, watching them.

“Julie,” Flynn said quietly. “Please tell me that there isn’t a random white lady staring at us across the street. Like, considering everything? This feels like a really bad sign.”

Julie turned around.

“No, she’s… definitely staring at us. Maybe she knows we’re skipping school?” Julie said, though by the tone of her voice Flynn could tell she didn’t mean it.

The woman lifted a hand and waved. Flynn grabbed at Julie’s arm, and Julie grabbed one of Flynn’s hands.

“She was looking at us,” Flynn said. “Holy – Julie! She’s taunting us! That’s probably Ava, right?”

When Flynn looked back, the woman was gone.

“Where’d she go? Did she poof? Did you see her?”

“I don’t know!” Julie said. “Come on, let’s go.”

They ran across the street and started to search every alley and store front they could look into, hoping she’d just walked. As Flynn peeked her head cautiously around the corner, ready to jump back if it turned out ghosts had fireball powers or something, Julie shrieked.

“Julie!” Flynn whirled around but Julie was the only one there.

“Reggie!” Julie snapped, and Flynn sighed in relief. Of _course_ it was Reggie. Absolute disaster of a boy.

“Why’s he here?” Flynn asked. If he was looking for Julie, wouldn’t he check the school? Maybe they really did have some kind of mind link.

Flynn wasn’t sure how she felt about considering one of Carlos’ ideas. Then again, he’d figured out that the Molina house had a ghost.

“He saw her, too, at the beach,” Julie said. “Flynn, Reggie says Willie followed her here from the Hollywood Ghost Club.”

“Where her _rival_ is in charge?” Flynn asked. She’d been pretty sure this was basically the mafia but with ghosts, which now raised the question, how powerful was this lady?

“Flynn, she lured us here,” Julie said. “This is really bad.”

“I think it’s entertaining,” a new voice said. Julie and Flynn clutched at each other again as they turned to face her.

It was the woman they’d seen waving. She was younger-looking than Alex and Luke were, with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail so high it seemed to tug at her face.

“I was expecting you to seek me out,” Ava said. “I wasn’t expecting you to spend _so much time_ talking first. I mean, really. I love a good revelation of heartfelt emotion as much as the next ghost, but you people dragged it on and _on…_ And you didn’t look up Luke and Alex’s solo careers! Most people, that’s the first thing they do, find out what happened when the world changed.”

“You’ve done this to other people,” Julie said.

“People, ghosts, a giraffe one time but that got boring quickly because of the lack of higher brain function. Oh! I must say I really enjoyed your line, Julie, what was it? ‘The dangerous stuff comes for us, not the other way around.’ Chills, Julie, dear. You’re quite fierce when you want to be. And you!” She pointed to Flynn.

“You were a surprise.”

“It’s a calling,” Flynn said, eyes narrowed. Her grip on Julie tightened.

“Most people like to keep these things to themselves,” Ava said. “Of course, most of the time I don’t get three at once!”

“Three what?” Julie snapped. “Why did you bring us here? What did you do to Luke and Alex?”

“I ensured their survival,” Ava said. “Morally, you should be thanking me.”

“And what about Reggie?” Flynn demanded. “You screwed them all over. Why not just keep them together?”

“I wanted to see what he and Julie would do,” Ava said. “Willie was a nice little bonus. You fell for Alex _fast_ , didn’t you, sweetheart?”

By the look of alarm on Julie’s face, something was happening. When Flynn gave her a little questioning look, Julie just shrugged, looking scared.

“I give you grief for all your talking, but you did do some surprising things,” Ava said. “Telling your father the truth about Reggie? I was shocked. And Luke and Alex gave me their fair share of fun, too. I had no idea Luke would turn to Caleb. I’d thought he had better taste.”

“If you don’t like talking, why are you doing so much of it?” Flynn said, practically shaking with anger. This woman had been _watching_ them, toying with her best friend’s emotions and the feelings of two boys Flynn wished she could properly hang out with, and for what? Fun?

“This is how most stories go,” Ava said. “You find out who did it. There’s a big, parlour room reveal. Have you never read an Agatha Christie novel? Granted, I don’t recall Poirot ever being the murderer…”

“Tell us where Alex and Luke are,” Julie interrupted.

“Same place they’ve been,” Ava said. “Hollywood.”

Ava jerked her head to the side. Her face twisted into a scowl.

“Get out of here!”

“Ok, we will,” Flynn said, tugging at Julie.

“Not you,” Ava said. Flynn’s legs locked in place. She shared a look of panic with Julie, who didn’t seem to be able to move either.

“I thought you said Caleb could control the guys because they were ghosts!” Flynn said.

“Which guys might that be?”

Flynn was getting really sick of freaking ghosts popping up out of nowhere. First Ava, now this white guy with a gross smile that she could only assume was Caleb, yet she still couldn’t see Reggie or Willie? Where was the _justice_?

“None of your concern, Caleb,” Ava said.

“I think it is, Ava, since it’s one of mine you’re holding there,” Caleb said. “Imagine my surprise when I came to check on William and found, not only his new ghost friend who so quickly disappeared from my club, but two young living girls and _you_ , Ava. Whose timeline did you meddle in?”

“Again, it is none of your concern.”

“Hey, maybe you two can figure this out, and we’ll just go…” Julie tried.

“If you want to leave William behind,” Caleb said. Flynn and Julie exchanged nervous glances, but neither one was going to do that.

“See, Ava, you just have to know how to _talk_ to them,” he said. “It’s cute, how they’ve latched onto some boy they’ve never even seen.”

“Caleb,” Ava said sweetly. “I’m the villain in this story. I know you hate to let anyone have their own good time, but I think it’s time you leave.”

“You can be the villain in everyone’s story,” Caleb said. “I’m a businessman. Now, let me guess whose lives you upturned. William, you brought your new friend into the club, and then you helped him leave before I could make my pitch. You warned him, didn’t you?”

Whatever Willie said, it made Caleb’s scowl grow.

“I’m surprised at you, William,” he said. “ _Reggie_ here doesn’t seem like your type.”

Ava rolled her eyes dramatically. Flynn and Julie had let go of each other’s arms, but they had tangled their fingers together in that same kind of death grip, pressing their shoulders close.

Flynn hated this. What was she supposed to do against two powerful ghosts in the middle of a cat fight? She couldn’t even _see_ Willie to help him.

“No, here’s what I think happened,” Caleb continued. “Reggie, formerly of the band Sunset Curve, right? I didn’t know you at first, but after poor Mr Patterson ran from the club… And naturally I remembered him mentioning a Reggie when he first gained his membership. He was so _hoping_ to see you, you really should have stayed.”

“Ah yes,” Ava said. “You’re a regular Miss Marple. Gossiping busybody who fancies himself intelligent.”

“The one thing I don’t know, Ava, is if you killed Reggie or you saved his bandmates.” Caleb glanced over at Flynn, who glared.

“What?” she snapped, knowing it was a bad idea. She was really tired of the way Julie was almost shaking next to her. She could only imagine how Reggie and Willie were doing.

“But then, I’ve never controlled Reggie here that I know of,” Caleb said. “Which means the guys my new living friend mentioned must be… Sunset Curve?”

“Do you expect a trophy?” Ava snapped. “Go. Away.”

“They’ve done so well with your little challenge,” Caleb said. “You don’t want to show off to them more than most?”

Ava grabbed him by the collar, tugging him close. If Flynn wasn’t so scared, she’d laugh at the picture they made, Ava staring up a good four inches at Caleb and somehow still giving the impression they were nose-to-nose.

“You want to see my office,” she said. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing you don’t expect,” Caleb said, grinning a smile full of teeth. Ava let him go and returned the smile. Flynn was pretty sure that if two sharks got in a fistfight, that would have the same vibe as this moment.

“Let’s go,” she said, and the world dissolved around Flynn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, apparently last chapter had some people worried? In retrospect, I was dealing with some sad stuff in life that maaay have bled through into my writing. But yes! I have no qualms about telling everyone, this fic will have a happy ending. I try to keep my fanfiction in line with the show, in terms of things like tone and subject matter and also swearing, if you're wondering why nobody has dropped a well-deserved f-bomb or two. So while this fic, like the show, deals with some heavy emotions, it is ultimately about that found family vibe and the power of love. I will drag these children back to happiness kicking and screaming if I have to, because they deserve to be happy! There is no point in sadness without hope. I do not like it.  
> Also, Flynn is my favourite narrator. Even when she can't see Willie and Reggie, which admittedly is a drawback, she has very good Opinions on everything. I feel a little sad that she's mostly comic relief right now but uh... let's just say I don't rest until everybody gets some good character development. (She'll be ok. again, I do not actually like to torture characters)  
> Ava has been revealed, and I don't have a lot to say about her that hasn't or won't be discussed, but she is kind of like if a self-insert character grew sentience and turned evil. I don't know, I figure some ghosts get bored and some ghosts are terrible people.  
> So we are over two thirds of the way through the story now, things are getting worse in terms of peril but better in terms of how sad everyone is. Next up: We learned the whys, now we get the hows of Ava's little world-changing operation.


	12. Chasing Down a Thrill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Further explanations abound, and Reggie is Going Through It. Caleb is a sinister mystery who people should really keep a better eye on.

Reggie hadn’t known that poofing somebody else was possible without a stamp like Caleb had used – had Caleb even used the stamp for that, then? He _definitely_ hadn’t known that ghosts could just poof lifers around.

“Where are we?” Flynn asked immediately, whirling around to check the room. Willie had wrapped his arms around himself, and he kept his gaze low even when Reggie nudged him worriedly. Julie looked over at Reggie, scanning him frantically.

“Are you and Willie ok?” she asked.

“They’re fine,” Caleb said, and all four teenagers turned, huddling close together, to see Caleb and Ava standing on either end of a table cluttered with books. “A little nervous, though, William?”

Willie lifted his head slightly and glared.

“If you’re going to punish me, go ahead,” he said.

Caleb chuckled.

“One thing I’ll give you, Ava, this certainly seems to be enough of a punishment. I’d love to know why you got involved, though, William. A ghost you’ve never met tells you a ridiculous sob story and suddenly you turn on _me?_ No. You have an interest in one of the others. Luke, Alex, or Bobby?”

Reggie’s jaw dropped. Flynn and Julie exchanged incredulous glances. Willie lifted his head up completely to stare at Caleb.

None of them had realised Caleb didn’t even know what happened that night at the Orpheum. Or, Reggie guessed, what had been meant to happen.

“Bobby? Really? I’d have thought you’d pick one you had a chance with, if you had to start yearning for somebody…” Caleb laughed.

“You absolute moron,” Ava said, sounding thrilled. “You utter nincompoop. Willie has never even _met_ Bobby. You have no idea what’s happened here.”

Caleb snarled for a second before turning his sickliest smile on Ava.

“They have even less of one,” he said. “And we did come here for you to gloat.”

Ava eyed him warily.

“Why do you think he wants her to talk about this so badly?” Reggie whispered to his friends on either side of him.

“Maybe he doesn’t know, either?” Julie said. Flynn glanced sideways at her, but didn’t say anything.

“He’d never be this obvious,” Willie whispered. “He already knows. He just thinks he’ll get something if _we_ know, too.”

Reggie gulped, and relayed this back to Julie as quietly as he could.

It wasn’t quiet enough, apparently, because Ava whirled to face them, giving up on her staring contest with Caleb.

“Fine,” she said. “You think you can play me, Caleb? I’ll give you what you want, and you still won’t win. Just watch.”

“I intend to,” Caleb said.

“I’m not just a crafter of fascinating narratives,” Ava said. “These books, they record my experiments. Some in a story format, for ease of reading, but most of these take into account the delicate nature of cause and effect. Everything touches everything else. The world is so vastly connected that one single change – an extra sound check, for instance – can lead the universe down a completely new path. I like to track the ripples.”

“This sounds like time travel,” Reggie said. “So… so Alex and Luke, they’re…”

“Yours,” Ava said with a pleasant smile. She tilted her head playfully. “Or as close as you can get without changing time again.”

“You mean without killing them again,” Julie said flatly. Flynn gasped, and Reggie wished he could comfort her. Even just a pat on the shoulder. It was probably really hard to be here with only one friendly face around her.

“Why would you do this?” Julie demanded, her voice starting to shake.

Ava raised her eyebrows.

“All right, maybe you’re not as smart as I thought,” she said. She spoke loudly and slowly. “I was bored. I like stories, and studying things. It’s a game.”

“That’s messed up,” Reggie said weakly. Willie let out a tiny laugh.

“Writers do it all the time,” Ava said. “I just have a bigger notebook than most. I fail to see the issue.”

Julie shook her head with her mouth hanging open, like she couldn’t bring herself to form a response. Reggie bumped the back of his hand against hers, and she grabbed at it tightly.

“So time travel is just one of your ghost powers?” Reggie asked. It was probably a bad idea, since Caleb wanted them to talk to Ava and talking to Ava was preventing them from escaping Ava, but the mystery had dangled in front of him for so _long_. If he and Julie were never going to play with their band again, then they deserved to know the details.

Ava smirked and jerked her head to the left. Reggie followed the motion to see a glass-fronted cabinet holding what looked like a small, metal ball with a pitted surface.

“Here’s how I usually wrap these things up,” Ava said. “I offer to change things back. I tell them the price. In this case, Luke and Alex die with you, just like they should have. Then I do the deed. Reggie, Willie, you’re the first ghosts since Caleb to know how I do it. And you girls… well. I do hope you end up as ghosts when you die. I’d _love_ to have this little scene hanging over you.”

“Why tell us?” Flynn demanded. “If it’s so secret? And you _know_ Caleb’s got some creepy, like, master plan to take that thing.”

“He couldn’t do a thing with it,” Ava said. “Almost nobody who wants to use it ever can.”

“Why?” Willie asked.

Ava smiled at him gently. She raised a finger and bounced it in the air like she was booping his nose.

“Now, that I shouldn’t say,” she said. “Unless you’d like to come work for me?”

“Yeah, I don’t think getting involved in another ghost’s power trip is really going to fix anything for me,” Willie said. Reggie snorted.

“He’s right,” Reggie said.

“Then here’s my offer,” Ava said. “Because you four have surprised me. I hadn’t realised Willie had made such a strong connection to my test subjects, and like I said, telling Flynn here…” She clicked her tongue. “Inspired choice, very in character.”

“Yeah, I’m still missing the offer part,” Julie said. “Get to the point. While you’re at it, tell us where Luke and Alex are.”

“Julie,” Ava said like she was scolding a naughty pet. “They’re not yours anymore.”

“But I know they’re in trouble, and I won’t leave them,” Julie said.

“Me neither,” Reggie said. “And they are my bandmates in this timeline too, so if that really matters to you it’s not like it’s stopping you.”

“Yeah, nobody should have to put up with your demonic self,” Flynn said, overlapping the end of Reggie’s speech.

“Just answer the question,” Willie added, still quiet but firm.

Ava clapped her hands with glee and shimmied her shoulders.

“Ooh, that was beautiful. All right, well, I won’t tell you where your grown-up friends are, because that spoils the fun. But I will tell you this: the world can go back to normal, if you do it yourselves.”

She poofed over to the cabinet and phased her arm through the glass, pulling out the sphere. A low hum filled the room as Ava touched it, and Reggie rubbed at his ears. It was at that place where pressure met noise, and while he usually loved that spot – he played bass, after all – the sound was constant and unyielding. Like a fight you were trapped in the middle of, or the looks on stranger’s faces when you kept getting things wrong.

“No,” Julie said immediately. “We told you no. We won’t let them die just because…”

“Because you miss them?” Ava said. She walked slowly over to them, her hand outstretched. “Darling, I wasn’t talking to you.” She stopped in front of the two teenage ghosts, looking almost hungry.

“You – you said that you were the only one who could use it,” Reggie said. He wanted to back up, but Julie was at one shoulder and Willie at the other, and he couldn’t leave them.

“The only one who usually wants to,” Ava said. “Most people don’t share my passion for investigation. But you boys… come on. At least one of you has to want them back.” Her eyes flicked back and forth between Reggie and Willie, finally settling on Reggie.

“They were all you had,” Ava said. “I’ve seen the way you are with them, and the way you are without them. Julie’s nice, but who understands you more? Don’t you miss jamming with Alex? Don’t you miss songwriting with Luke? If I give you this, Reggie, I won’t go with you. The outcome is in your hands. You could even change your death.”

Like a phantom pain, Reggie felt a twinge in his incorporeal stomach. Involuntary thoughts of that last night at the Orpheum played in his mind – how it had felt to sweat on stage, joking with the others, flirting with people who could _hear_ him.

He also thought about the time he really did play the Orpheum. His mind wandered through the memory of hearing Julie sing through the haze of Caleb’s show, and of _wanting_ to be with his friends so badly that suddenly he was.

Reggie felt Julie squeeze his hand.

“Don’t do it,” Flynn moaned softly, still clinging to Julie’s other side. “Reggie, you’re way too cool to buy this stuff.”

Reggie glanced at Willie, who smiled sadly and shrugged. Reggie smiled back, taking his friend’s hand and squeezing it the way Julie had done for him.

“Yeah, you’re insane,” Reggie said to Ava. “We just told you we don’t want that. And why would I leave Julie? Or Flynn and Willie? Look, if you’re going to make me pick some of my friends over the others, I’m going to pick the ones I have right now, because they still need me. Luke and Alex have their closure.”

“Reggie,” Ava said. Her fingers tightened around the ball. “All you have to do is touch this, and think of it. The Orpheum, and you’re there!”

Reggie had been thinking about the Orpheum a lot just since she started talking, actually, and he really didn’t appreciate the pressure. He looked away and chewed his lip, trying not to say anything.

“Oh, is that how it works?” Caleb asked, appearing just behind Ava’s shoulder.

Before anyone could do more than gasp, Caleb grabbed Ava’s hand, shoving it straight into Reggie’s chest. Reggie had one last moment to think about how much he didn’t want to see the streets of Hollywood after his next blink, and then he was there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  
> anyway this and the next chapter are some of the things I've been most eager to get to. I might have said that before. I've been dying to get to all of this, let's be real, why else would I have a daily update schedule.  
> Little more explanation of Ava's whole thing, and the Temptation of Reggie! I did consider it being Julie or Willie because those are also delicious possibilities, but I think Ava was most likely to go for the "childhood friends who died together" thing. Maybe I'll write versions of that scene for the others. That's what I need, more angst. I swear??? I'm not an angst writer???  
> Also, is it weird to have Ava's line about Julie being in character? I wrote it because it seemed like she'd say it and then I remembered that's a weird thing to do on a metatextual level. Oh well, it's my fanfic, I do what I want. If I didn't think Julie was in character when she told Flynn, that would actually be a bigger problem, so.  
> Next up: Hollywood, 1995! Flynn gets hugs from a surprising new quarter. Willie's in a good mood for the first time in a while. Caleb and Ava are out here hate-vibing.


	13. Try For One More Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One step closer! Or, you know, multiple blocks farther away. It depends on your perspective here. Everybody has been tremendously set back by this, even Caleb. On the bright side, we get a hug!

Julie came to on a sidewalk somewhere in the city, sitting on the ground against the side of the building. A boy was looming over her, his long hair just tickling her nose.

“Ahh!” Julie shrieked.

“Ahh!” the boy replied, jumping back. He gaped at her and waved his hand in front of her face. When she lifted her hands, too shocked to muster the word “why,” he grinned.

“What are you doing?” Julie snapped when she found her voice.

“You can see me?” He took a bouncy step back, laughing and looking around like he wanted to show off to somebody.

“Yes, I can see you, you were like three inches from my –“

There was only one reason Julie could think of that a boy would be so excited to be seen by her.

“Willie?” she said hopefully.

“Yes!” he laughed. “Yes, hi.” He shook out his long, undeniably pretty hair as though the coolness of the motion could make up for the absolute dork he’d just revealed himself to be.

He and Alex were perfect for each other, Julie thought. _A dork who thinks he’s cool and a cool guy who thinks he’s a dork._ She stood up slowly. Her whole body ached.

“Why can I see you?” she asked.

He shrugged, still laughing slightly.

“How should I know? I don’t even have answers about most of regular ghosthood.”

“That’s not how Alex told it,” Julie said.

Willie ducked his head, a sweet smile on his face.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “He probably just…”

“Wanted me to like you?” Julie said. They both laughed for a minute. The relief of being seen and with a friend was overwhelming.

Too soon, though, reality set in.

“Reggie,” Julie said. “Flynn! Guys?”

Willie wrapped his arms around himself.

“Julie, the only times I’ve ever been visible to lifers, Caleb did it,” he said. Julie’s heart seemed to stop for a moment, and she looked around with a new purpose.

But there was no sign of her other friends, or of Caleb. Not even Ava.

“Can he do it from a distance?” Julie asked.

Willie’s arms drifted down from his middle. He smiled as he thought about it.

“No,” he said. “No, I’ve never seen him do it, and I don’t actually know why he would. Whatever this is, it’s not Caleb.”

It broke Julie’s heart how awed he was of that fact.

“We have to find the others,” Julie said. She grimaced and added, “We have to find out where we are.”

“I know this place,” Willie said. “It’s a couple blocks from the Orpheum.”

“The Orpheum!” Julie exclaimed. “If anyone’s going to be somewhere, it’ll be there. Ava said we’d go to 1995, right?”

“She also said just Reggie would go,” Willie pointed out.

“Do you have a better idea?” Julie asked. “Because I’m pretty sure standing here isn’t getting us home, and it isn’t getting Reggie and Flynn back to us either.”

Willie nodded, a little mock-bow with a rueful smile.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Orpheum is this way.”

“You know the area pretty well, huh?” Julie asked. Willie shrugged with a grin that couldn’t decide if it was sheepish or proud, and led the way down the sidewalk.

“I’ve been skating the area for a long time,” he said.

“How long?” Julie asked, remembering that for all he looked just a bit older than her, he could have died decades ago.

Willie grinned at her, raising his eyebrows playfully.

“Guess,” he said cheerfully.

Julie laughed, considering the game, but worries crept their way in again.

“Do you think Flynn came with us, or she’s back there?” Julie asked. “I guess you and me came because of Reggie, like I was holding his hand?” She didn’t know for sure what Willie had been doing when Ava’s thing got activated, but knowing Reggie they had probably been touching.

“Yeah,” Willie said. “Which means Caleb and Ava are definitely somewhere, too, because they touched Reggie and that… device.”

“Are the words ‘time travel’ really weird for you to think, too?” Julie asked wryly.

“Well, you know, I’m a ghost who sold his soul and whose boyfriend got saved from the same fate by the power of love and music,” Willie said. “So yeah, I’d say time travel is really hard to believe.”

Julie smiled.

“Does it feel different?” Willie asked. “I mean, I know we all said no to Ava back in 2020. Now that we’re here, though… It’s real.”

Julie wondered if she should feel offended that Willie thought she’d change her mind. She understood, though. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel if she had to come face-to-face with her Luke, just before it happened.

“I care about Luke,” she said finally. “So I want him to live his life. I’d rather lose him than…”

“Yeah,” Willie said when it was clear Julie couldn’t finish. “Me too. Except about Alex,” he added with a grin. Julie laughed.

“Come on,” she said. “Who knows if Caleb and Ava are already there.”

She and Willie hurried a little faster down the sidewalk.

Reggie couldn’t believe this was happening. He’d said no! He hadn’t even really considered Ava’s offer, intrusive thoughts aside, but he certainly couldn’t stomach going back in time and leaving the others like that.

And now here he was anyway, and Julie, Flynn, and Willie were nowhere to be seen.

Somebody groaned. Reggie turned around to see Flynn leaning against a wall, clutching her head.

“Flynn! Hey! Are you ok, how are you doing?” he blurted, hands fluttering around her like he could steady her if he wished it hard enough. Maybe he could. They’d never quite learned how ghosts holding things worked, except for what Willie had said about focus.

“Oh my god,” Flynn said, staring at him. Wait, no, past him. Reggie turned around, but it was just an empty alley. He didn’t think she was staring at the trash bags. He turned back around to see Flynn still gaping.

“Reggie?” she said.

“Wait,” Reggie said. “How did you know I’m here?”

“Because I can _see_ you!” Flynn cried. She gasped. “Oh my god, Reggie, I can hear you too! You’re – you’re actually here! And Julie’s not even – _where_ the _heck_ is Julie?”

“I don’t know,” Reggie said. “But she’s probably here somewhere? I was holding her hand, and Willie’s, and if you’re here that means they’re _definitely_ here.”

“Where even is here?” Flynn said. “I mean… did we really…”

A loud voice interrupted them. They turned to see somebody walking past, holding a thick grey phone to their ear that stretched from their jaw past their ear, with a little antenna pulled out at the top.

"Oh, hey, a real phone," Reggie said. A sniffling noise made him turn. Flynn was sobbing quietly.

“Oh no,” Reggie said. “Uh. You’re crying. Hey, she’s – right, nobody else is here. Uh, Flynn? Are you ok?”

“No!” Flynn burst out. “I was trying to be fine, because Julie has _not_ been, and everything’s terrible, and now we’re fighting ghosts, so it’s like… like the worst horror movie ever because at least in horror movies everything looks scary? So you’re allowed to be scared? But Ava and Caleb are just…” She shook her head. “And I don’t even _know_ half of what happened back there, like you didn’t take her offer, right? But Caleb did it anyway? And now we’re in the freaking past, and I don’t even know where my best friend is!”

She was shaking with her tears now. Reggie bounced anxiously, wishing he could hug her.

“I didn’t really consider it,” he offered. “What Ava said. Yeah, I thought about playing the Orpheum, but I also thought about when I really played it. With Julie. I told Ava that Luke and Alex don’t really need me anymore, but you and Julie and Willie still do.”

Flynn was still crying. Reggie's bouncing doubled in tempo, then he took a deep breath and made himself slow down just a bit.

“It’s ok not to be fine,” Reggie tried. “Did we tell you, about what happened when we first figured out what was going on?”

Flynn sniffed and looked up at him.

“Maybe? What happened?”

Reggie stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“I wanted to help Julie, but I knew if I stayed I’d probably break down and she’d end up helping me, so I left,” he said. “Except that kind of made it worse?”

“Yeah, because you left her _alone_ ,” Flynn said. “Who does that?”

“I was really scared I couldn’t live up to Luke or Alex,” Reggie admitted. “Which, as it turns out, I kind of did do because apparently that’s why adult Luke stopped talking to Alex? Anyway. Julie will be ok if you’re not fine. She’d probably feel less alone. I know I like knowing I'm not the only one who's scared.”

Flynn wiped her face, her tears slowed to the occasional sniffle.

“You’re weirdly good at that, for somebody who’s so out of it all the time,” she said.

“Thanks!” Reggie said brightly. Yes! He'd cheered her up successfully, all on his own! “Glad I could help.”

Flynn laughed. Then the next thing he knew she was hugging him.

“Whoa,” Reggie said. “Wait, Flynn! Flynn, this is a hug!”

Flynn jumped back, wide-eyed.

“Wow,” she said. “Do we know why that happened?”

“Julie could touch us after we got rid of Caleb’s stamp,” Reggie said. “Maybe it’s something to do with ghost magic? The time travel thing?”

“Ugh,” Flynn said, linking elbows with Reggie and leading him to the end of the alley. “If I never have to deal with weird ghost magic like this again, it will be way too soon.”

“Hey,” Reggie said. Flynn patted him on the arm.

“I will make an exception for you and Willie,” she said. “A girl has limits, though.”

“That seems fair,” Reggie said. “I think cutting evil ghost magic out of your life is probably a good step to take.”

“Be a weird support group, though,” Flynn said. She wiped at her face again, and Reggie cast a concerned glance at her.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked.

“I’m super not ok,” Flynn said. “But I can deal with it, until we get the others back and go home. Then I think we should all sit down and eat some ice cream or something.”

“Man, I miss ice cream,” Reggie said. “Eat extra for me, ok?”

Flynn smiled. “Deal. And, for what it's worth, you're actually pretty good at keeping it together when you need to. So. If Willie and Julie are here, which we’re pretty sure they are… where are they?”

Reggie looked around. Just barely in view, he saw a familiar neon sign. If he breathed normally, he was pretty sure he’d have started to hyperventilate.

“There’s a good place to start,” Reggie said.

“Wait,” Flynn said. “Is that – are we –“

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “Just a few blocks from the Orpheum.”

Ava shoved Caleb away, but the damage was done. They were in 1995, on the streets of Hollywood.

She still had her Instrument, and unfortunately Caleb. But Reggie was nowhere to be seen, which should _not_ have happened. They should have all ended up in the same place, the place Reggie was thinking of.

“You… absolute… _imbecile_!” Ava shrieked before lunging at Caleb. He looked smug for all of a second before she smacked into him, sending them both falling through a wall into what looked like a seedy bar. Ava ignored the feet shuffling through her across the sticky floor in favour of pinning Caleb with a knee to the chest.

“What’s the matter?” Ava taunted gleefully, savouring the confusion on his face. “No teleportation here and now?”

“What did you do?” Caleb snapped, pushing her back. He stood, brushed himself off, and stepped back through the wall to the street. Ava smirked as she followed.

“I didn’t do a thing,” she said. “There’s two of you here, three of me actually, and you don’t belong. No teleportation. Very limited visibility. You’ll have to dig deep to touch anything, like you’re a newly made ghostie all over again. Regretting your choices yet, Caleb?”

She paused, eyeing him as he stalked down the street like a wet cat.

“Why did you do this?” she called out, deciding to follow him. The better to make him suffer, really. Anyway, she couldn’t leave with Reggie still somewhere in the past. It would throw off all her data.

“I don’t think that’s your business,” Caleb said. Ava looked at where they’d come from and the direction Caleb was walking. There was one place she could think of that he’d want to go.

“Well, Caleb, it looks like you’re going my way,” she said. “Why don’t we go together, you twisted piece of pond scum?”

“I’d rather hand my club over to Reginald, and be forced to move on only after I watched him run it into the ground,” Caleb shot back.

“You’ve never used a metaphor in your life, have you? You’re far too self-obsessed to even pretend it’s not about you,” Ava said. She strolled along behind him, still smiling, as he marched toward the Orpheum.

She was quite sure Caleb wasn’t the only one heading there, and if she had to deal with this nonsense at least she’d be in for a dramatic confrontation. Maybe even a reunion!

It was funny how everyone had gone on and on about where Alex and Luke were. Not once had the children thought to ask her when she’d sent them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, AHHHHHHHH  
> Is there a reason Flynn and Julie can see the guys? Yes. Will we get to it? I'm... pretty sure? The only trouble is I'm not sure how much more exposition I can have Ava fit in before we wrap this up because uh. Three chapters left folks.  
> On that note, you maaay have noticed: this is now part of a series. There will be a sequel. I think there's a few too many loose ends left by the time we get everybody home, and I really want to end it on the note I've had in my head since the fic started. (This has all been building to a happy scene at the end I swear! We're so close!!!) But since Caleb took over the show (seriously I thought he'd have, like, one scene) there's going to have to be fallout.  
> So - we're almost done. But also, we're not. I'll have more details on the sequel once the fic is finished completely, and you'll probably have a better idea of what it'll be about anyway by then, but I wanted to make this announcement now because it's officially official. Whoo!  
> Tomorrow: When are Luke and Alex? What happens at the Orpheum? Has it occurred to anybody that maybe Julie and Flynn showing up and being seen by the living members of Sunset Curve might not go great?


	14. Time Would Not Erase Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Alex are not great at investigating but they are stubborn. Also, a different Luke and Alex meet some new friends who seem oddly emotional about their upbeat rock song. Weird.  
> Warning: this first scene contains discussion of suicide, essentially. It's with regards to the timeline changing back, since Ava is giving her speech about options directly to Alex and Luke, who would of course be dead in the original timeline. Neither one considers it, but Ava does her best to make it convincing, if brief. So you can skip it if you need, it starts after she reveals her time travel device ("small metal ball with an uneven grey surface") and ends with "choose whatever path is right". I'll put a quick rundown of her offer in the notes at the end if you want to take a look at that instead.

_A Thursday morning, 2020_

“Maybe we should have asked for the kids’ help,” Alex said as their latest lead turned out to be an Italian restaurant. “Or an early lunch.” _Anything_ to make Luke slow down for a minute.

“They’re just kids, bad enough they’re involved in this, we shouldn’t be making them figure it out,” Luke said, ignoring Alex’s hint and walking away.

“Look, will you just stop for a second?” Alex asked, grabbing at his old friend’s shoulder. “We know less than they do, all right? We’re dealing with ghosts, some of them are _literally_ ghosts… They’d know who to ask better than we do.”

“So you want to ask Reggie for help asking around _discreetly_ about a potentially dangerous ghost?”

Alex cleared his throat.

“Ok, maybe not that,” he admitted. “Though honestly knowing him he’d stumble right into her.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Luke said. Well, he snapped it really, which made Alex look closer at him. Something else was wrong.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked. Even after so many years, he knew the signs. Alex wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“I just… how do we even know it is Reggie?” Luke blurted. “Maybe this is some elaborate trick. I mean, Caleb…”

“You didn’t get to see him,” Alex realised.

“Not since the Club,” Luke admitted miserably. He looked at Alex with a frown. “Wait, you did?”

“He can be visible when he plays with Julie,” Alex said. “It was how they proved they were telling the truth. Luke, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of it. If we had…”

“It’s fine,” Luke said, though Alex was pretty sure it wasn’t. “We had enough to worry about.”

“You still do,” said a voice behind them. Alex and Luke whipped around, grabbing at each other’s hands in a way that was embarrassingly reminiscent of their younger selves. They eyed each other warily and let go.

“Aw, a broken friendship,” the woman in front of them observed. “Not unexpected.” With blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail and all-black clothing, she still looked like she was working backstage at a show, the way she had years ago.

“Ava, right?” Luke said.

“I’d be flattered you remembered me, but you finding me is part of the point,” Ava said in a bored tone. “Here’s the choice before you two sentient mid-life crises. Things stay as they are, or you go back in time and cause your younger selves’ death alongside Reggie, thus reverting the world to what our young protagonists remember. I expect to give this speech a few times, and frankly you two aren’t my main interest anymore, so I won’t bore you with the details.”

“What – we – the details are why we’re here! Why did you let Reggie die alone?” Luke demanded.

Ava tilted her head. “Oh, finally, a bit of interesting word choice. I was hoping your lives would play out in an unexpected way. Unfortunately, your trauma responses were… normal. It’s all still data, I suppose.”

“You can’t send them home? Swap them or something?” Alex asked.

“Alex, sweetheart,” Ava said condescendingly. Alex didn’t think he’d ever been called sweetheart by a woman who looked at least ten years younger than him. He honestly wasn’t sure what to do with that. “It’s time travel. There’s only one world at work here.”

“Ok,” Luke said. “Ok, so you can’t do that. Can you at least tell us how to get that other ghost… Willie. How to get Willie away from Caleb? Seems like you’re his only rival, right?”

“Aw,” Ava said. “That’s sweet.”

“Yeah, well, that was the only other thing on Julie’s list,” Alex said.

“And you just love helping out friends,” Ava said. “Wow, underneath all the depression and survivor’s guilt, you really are the same people. _That_ I like. But really.”

She held out her hand, and suddenly a small metal ball with an uneven grey surface sat in her palm.

“Reggie doesn’t have to die alone,” she said. “Those sweet kids don’t have to bear the weight of a world that’s so much lonelier than theirs.”

“You’re asking us to kill ourselves,” Alex said.

“Are you really? Or are you setting the world right? Touch this, think of the Orpheum, it takes you back there. I won’t be with you. Choose whatever path is right.”

“Even saving Reggie? Saving all of us?” Luke asked.

“You could,” Ava said. “But everybody who loves Reggie as he is now would remember. You’d take him away from Julie, and Willie, and Flynn.”

“Julie, Willie – they remember the other world because they loved us?” Alex said.

“Ok, Alex, I _know_ they told you Willie was your teenage ghost boyfriend. Keep up.”

“Yeah, but boyfriend is – a really vague word!” Alex’s voice hadn’t gotten this high-pitched in years. “Love is…”

Mostly the only person who ever said they loved him anymore was his sister. And now, apparently, some kid he didn’t even know.

“Alex,” Luke muttered. He tugged at Alex’s arm, and Ava let them step away.

“Look, I think we take the thing, we go back there, and we figure it out there,” he said. “Then. Whatever.”

“Our options are kill ourselves or take another friend away from those kids!” Alex snapped.

“So we find a third option,” Luke said. “Ava’s not coming with us, she doesn’t know what we’ll do. Maybe there’s a way we can… split the timelines. You don’t actually think she’s telling us everything, do you?”

“No,” Alex agreed. “You’re sure?”

“Honestly, I haven’t been sure about anything in years,” Luke said. “But this is our best shot.”

“She said she wanted to have this conversation more than once,” Alex said. “Luke, you don’t think she wants to go after the kids?”

Judging by the expression on Luke’s face, now that Alex said it he definitely did think that.

“Right, I’ll warn them,” Alex said. He pulled out his phone.

“Ooh, who are you texting?” Ava appeared just over Alex’s shoulder, and he yelped, tilting his phone away.

“My – my sister texted,” he said. “Never mind, I’ll check with her later.” He shoved his hand into his pocket, phone still on and keyboard open, trying his best to text without looking at the touch screen. He hoped desperately it would be clear to Julie.

He also hoped that he’d managed to hit send. Maybe he shouldn’t have turned off that vibrating keyboard feature.

“We’ll do it,” Luke said. Ava raised her eyebrows.

“Well,” she said. She eyed Alex. “Maybe you’d better text your sister back now.”

“It’s fine,” Alex snapped. He wasn’t going to let Ava see that he’d warned Julie. Sure, she could probably guess he was lying, but there was guessing and there was knowing.

“All right,” Ava said, shrugging like it never mattered.

Maybe it didn’t, to her, and that was a chilling thought.

“Here,” Ava said. She held out that strange little ball once more. “Think of the Orpheum, 1995. I imagine you still remember it well.”

Luke looked at Alex, lifting up his hand. Alex took it, lacing their fingers together like when they were kids, and they reached out together to touch the mysterious device.

_Hollywood, 1995_

_The Orpheum_

“Do you see anyone?” Flynn asked as they approached the Orpheum. A few people were outside, but Reggie had said it was still early. The guys were probably doing a soundcheck still.

“No… come on, I bet we can get in the stage door,” Reggie said. He led her around the side.

“And what if it’s locked? Or somebody sees me?”

“Not sure what to do about the second one,” Reggie admitted. Flynn rolled her eyes. _Of_ _course_. “But!”

He stepped through the stage door, then a second later the lock clicked and it opened. Reggie beckoned from within the Orpheum.

“I do know how to deal with the first one,” he said brightly. “Being a ghost has its perks, huh?”

Flynn shook her head, grinning.

“Come on, before someone sees and figures out I’m not supposed to be here,” she said. “I hope Julie and Willie are here.”

“Me too,” Reggie said.

They stopped in the shadows by the stage, hidden behind lights that all pointed away from them, up to the band. Flynn swallowed hard.

There was Reggie, up next to the drummer – Alex. A boy she recognised as a younger version of Carrie’s dad was drinking from his water bottle, and Luke was standing next to his microphone, grinning out at the empty audience.

“This is it,” Flynn heard him say to the others.

“Yeah, bro, you’ve only been saying that all day,” Reggie said, hopping down from where Alex’s drumset was.

Ghost-Reggie drew in a sharp breath. Flynn looked up at him, worried.

“You ok?” she asked. “You’re a ghost, nobody would notice if you just stepped out.”

“I’m fine,” Reggie said. “This is just… really weird.”

“Flynn!” somebody hissed. Flynn and Reggie turned to see Julie, also trying her best to stay out of the way. There was a boy next to her with long hair and baggy clothing. Flynn knew Julie liked to collect stray friends, but this was ridiculous.

“Do we know that guy?” Flynn hissed.

“Who, Willie?” Reggie gasped comically. “You can see Willie?”

“Is Willie a very cute boy with long hair and kind of dated clothes?” Flynn asked.

“Flynn, come on, we’re ghosts, everything about us is dated,” Reggie said.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Flynn said. They crept over to Julie and Willie as Sunset Curve was given the go-ahead to play. By the time they reached them, Julie and Willie were both staring at the stage.

“I know I’m really good at music, but you do have a version of me right here,” Reggie said. Flynn smacked him lightly on the arm, which did seem to pull Willie out of his trance.

“Flynn,” he said, looking puzzled.

“Hey,” Flynn said.

Willie looked at Reggie, wide-eyed, then back at Flynn.

“You can see us?” he said. “You can _touch_ Reggie?”

Flynn poked him experimentally. Her hand did not go through.

“I can touch you,” she said cheerfully. Julie finally seemed to notice what they were doing, and she laughed incredulously.

“No way,” Julie said. She offered a hand to Willie, who took it after a second of hesitation. They curled their grips around each other for a moment, then Willie pulled away.

“Cool,” he said, and he was smiling, so Flynn decided not to worry too much about the fact that he didn’t seem to want a lot of touch. It was probably just what he was like.

With nothing to preoccupy them for a moment, the four friends ended up watching the stage. Reggie was moving to the beat like he wanted to get up and play with his living self.

“Sunset Curve was really good,” Willie said as Alex hit his vocal solo.

“They were gonna be legends,” Julie said, and Flynn leaned her head on Julie’s shoulder and wrapped her arm around her friend’s waist. The band started to clap in time, forgoing their instruments, and Flynn found herself moving to the beat a little as well. Julie was tapping one hand on her thigh in time with the music. Willie just watched, his eyes fixed on Alex like he was the only one playing.

Finally the song ended. Julie and Flynn exchanged glances. Flynn couldn’t help but giggle as she applauded quietly.

Julie’s eyes widened and she reached out for Flynn.

“They’re coming over here! Why are they coming over here?”

Bobby and living-Reggie had split off, heading for the bar, but Luke was heading their way with Alex trailing behind, a long-suffering look on the blond boy’s face.

“Hey,” Luke said, stopping in front of Julie. Julie pinched Flynn. Flynn pinched her back.

“Hi!” Julie said. “I’m… totally supposed to be here.”

“Ooh,” Reggie said, wincing. Willie actually turned his head away in what looked like embarrassment.

“We both are,” Flynn said, wishing Julie would stop trying to come up with lies. “Hi. I’m… Carrie.”

Reggie snorted. Julie’s grin widened in that way that meant she was trying desperately to keep it together.

“Hey,” Luke said. “So you’re not audience members who snuck in early?”

“He was really hoping for some fans he could show off to,” Alex put in, rolling his eyes.

“We figured,” Flynn said. Julie glared at her. “What?”

“You were great up there,” Julie said, turning pointedly away from Flynn. Flynn exchanged a glance with Alex, sharing in the moment of _why are these our friends_ , and then she realised that might have been the single weirdest moment of her life so far.

“That’s good to hear,” Luke said. “Because it kind of looks like you were crying a little, and I’d hate to think our music is that bad.”

“Crying? What? No! I wouldn’t – I didn’t…” Julie rubbed at her face guiltily. Flynn tried not to frown. She hadn’t noticed the tear tracks earlier. “It’s just… that song.”

“What, ‘Now or Never’? I figured it was pretty upbeat,” Luke said.

“I guess,” Julie said. “But… all that stuff about not making it to tomorrow…”

“Nah, it’s about living like it is tomorrow,” Luke said. “You know, it’s like every day is your biggest day yet. That’s how you make a good future.”

“That’s really nice,” Julie said. “Your song still does give off vibes like ‘we could die any minute’.”

“Couldn’t we?” Luke said. Alex made a noise of exasperation that he very obviously ignored. “That’s another pretty good reason to have a good time now.” Flynn's unimpressed expression found another twin on Alex's face. It was pretty obvious Luke was trying to equate "good time" with "hanging out with Julie."

“Ok, I know you don’t know I’m here, but not cool, dude,” Reggie huffed. "I'm feeling kind of sensitive about the whole death thing right now." Flynn patted him gently on the shoulder, and then had to turn the motion into a wave when Alex looked at her with confusion.

"See, now you're defeating your own purpose," Julie said. "I mean, you just told me it wasn't a song about death, but now it is?"

"You think you could help me fix it up?" Luke asked.

Flynn could not believe she had to sit through any more of this. Poor girl was pining like crazy, and Flynn hadn't even realised that these two both thought talking about songwriting was a good way to flirt. Luckily Alex seemed to be was on the same page as Flynn.

“Hey, Reggie!” he called out.

Beside Flynn, Reggie perked up.

“What’s up?” he said automatically, right before Alex walked through him. His friends looked at him, and Julie reached out a hand before remembering Luke was right there.

“Excuse us,” Julie said to Luke, grabbing Flynn’s arm and steering her away. The two ghosts followed.

“Are you ok?” Julie asked once they were out of earshot. Luke joined Alex, living-Reggie, and Bobby at the bar.

Flynn's Reggie looked shell-shocked.

“I knew…” he said quietly. “I just forgot.”

Julie and Flynn exchanged worried glances.

“We’ve got to get home,” Julie said. “Neither of you had that… orb thing?”

Flynn shook her head.

“Ava’s probably got it,” Flynn said. “Or Caleb. You’d think they’d be here, right, if they both had evil plans for tonight?”

“I just wish we knew what Caleb wants,” Julie said, before freezing with her gaze fixed past Flynn’s shoulder. Flynn, Willie, and Reggie turned around to see Luke and Alex – the adults Flynn had first met – looking around the near-empty Orpheum. Alex saw them and smacked Luke on the arm, pointing when he had the other man’s attention.

“What are you doing here?” Julie hissed as soon as the two groups got close enough.

“Us? What are you doing here? We told you kids to stay away!” Luke said.

“You were clearly texting under duress,” Flynn said. “We thought you were in trouble!”

Luke glared at Alex, who raised his hands defensively.

“I couldn’t see what I was doing, all right? We’re probably lucky they even knew what I tried to tell them,” he pointed out. Luke rolled his eyes and then froze, staring at Reggie.

“You can see me now, too?” Reggie said, sounding delighted, right before Luke swept him up in a hug. Alex blinked for a second, clearly surprised by Luke being able to touch Reggie, but when Luke held out an arm he joined the hug without a word.

“I’m so sorry,” Luke choked out. Flynn guiltily stepped back, turning away as Willie and Julie joined her. Some things were probably better left private.

Flynn remembered that she had some guilt of her own she needed to get out.

“Hey, Julie?” she said. _Remember what Reggie talked about. Julie doesn’t want to suffer alone._

“Yeah?” Julie asked.

“Look, this isn’t like a – you don’t need to support me or anything. I just want you to know I’ve been really worried about you since all this stuff started,” Flynn said. “And I’m really glad you’ve come to me with this stuff. After your mom… It means a lot that you let me help you.”

“You know you don’t have to, right?” Julie asked. Willie gestured to Flynn to say he’d give them some privacy, too, and Flynn smiled at him before looking back at Julie.

“That’s kind of why I do, Jules,” she said. “I know you can handle all this stuff on your own, but you don’t have to. I just needed you to know… you’re not the only one who’s scared. But I’m not so scared I don’t think we’ll figure it out, because you and me can do anything together. Right?”

“Yeah,” Julie said.

“Plus we’ve got the guys,” Flynn added. “Reggie’s weirdly good at emotional pep talks, as long as he doesn’t go too far off-topic.”

“Right? It’s like, you never know when that’s gonna jump out.” The two girls laughed, and Flynn looked around.

“Where’d Willie go?” she asked.

Reggie clung to his friends, trying not to think about the fact that the ones he recognised better were the ones who’d walked right through him. There was a Luke and an Alex right here, and they had missed him.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Luke said again.

“It’s not your fault,” Reggie muttered. It was kind of weird hugging them, when they were both the wrong size and shape to really register as Alex and Luke in his mind.

But they hugged him the same way, put their hands in the same places and used the same pressure and stood as close as they always had. Reggie sniffled a little.

“We should have – we shouldn’t have let you go,” Luke said as he finally pulled back. Alex squeezed Reggie tighter for a second, then pulled back as well.

“Bro,” Reggie said. “I was hungry. You were doing a soundcheck, right? Ava did it on purpose.”

“Then we shouldn’t have let you go alone,” Luke said. “We said we’d always have each other.”

Reggie’s eyes widened. There was only one way he knew for Luke and Alex to have time travelled, which meant Ava was involved. What Luke had just said sounded like the kind of thing ghosts kept trying to say to Reggie to get him to do what they wanted: Caleb’s pitch, Ava’s, always about having his friends there. This version of Luke had already bought into one scam.

“Wait, how are you here? You didn’t – You’re not going to –“

“No, hey, it’s ok,” Alex said immediately. “We were hoping to find a way to split the timelines. Send you home, and maybe save a version of you to grow up with us. We figured there’s no way Ava told the whole truth.”

Reggie let out a shaky breath.

“Right, of course you guys wouldn’t do that. Good.”

“I guess she gave you the same pitch?” Luke asked.

“I told her no,” Reggie said. “We all did. Then Caleb had to ruin it.”

“Caleb’s here?” Luke said, looking around the Orpheum.

“Haven’t seen him since he shoved that thing at me,” Reggie said. “But I bet he and Ava are here somewhere.”

Luke sighed shakily, staring at his own back as his younger self nudged Bobby, all four bandmates leaning over the bar counter to talk to Rose. Reggie looked away. It was _weird_ knowing what was about to happen to that Reggie over there.

Weird was a poor choice of word, actually, but if Reggie let himself think about it he’d be there all night just listing words.

“There’s not really a good way to fix this,” Luke said. “But, Reg, you have to know that even if it’s not my fault, I’m still sorry that you were alone.”

“Come on,” Reggie said weakly. “I’m never alone. I always have you guys.”

Alex laughed softly.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s true. And we always have you.”

He lifted his gaze to where their younger selves were standing, and the smile left his face.

“There’s Ava,” Alex said darkly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: Ava's offer is the same as last time, they can either leave things the same or change the past back themselves, which in this case requires Luke and Alex to actively choose to die. They do not accept this. She tries to sweeten the pot by pointing out that she won't come with them and they can do whatever they want, which is where they start talking about saving Reggie.  
> This one was a hard one to get right, especially that opening. From the start it's been important to me that Luke and Alex are the ones who decide Julie and Reggie should get their band back, but also I do not want them to choose to die? Like I said when this started: moral quandaries. So now we're getting into navigating the resolution to this mess without it being a terrible way to end a fic. Bear with me! There is nobody who decides to die, and none of our heroes will kill anybody.  
> Reggie and adult Luke have a much-belated in-person meeting! Everybody who has time traveled so far has been able to see everybody else and that sure is A Thing. I also hope the Julie/Luke interaction was more funny than sad, though I think bittersweet is probably where it landed. I'm ok with that. As long as you imagine Flynn and Alex traded baffled best-friend looks over Julie and Luke's shoulders, that is really what matters.  
> Next! The big finale! The one you've been waiting for: Where is Willie, anyway? Where'd Caleb go? How in the name of all that is holy do they fix this? Will we get more hugs? (Ok so the answer to the last one is probably yes because that's what I do.)


	15. We All Got a Second Act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To eat or not to eat? That would be the question, if Reggie, Luke, and Alex were aware of any of the drama going on around them. As it is, we and our protagonists are left watching a train wreck in slow motion. People should really start chaining Caleb to walls or something.

Reggie, Luke, and Alex were just about to head out for food when one of the sound technicians approached them.

“Hey, can we do one last check? Just the drums and your microphone,” she said, nodding to Luke. Reggie started to follow them back when his stomach growled loudly.

“Bro, go get something to eat,” Luke said, laughing. “We’ll meet you out there.”

Reggie glanced at Alex, who just waved him off.

“If you’re trying to get me to buy you dinner, it won’t work!” Reggie called over his shoulder as he left. A shout made him pause. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw a couple of Orpheum security guards talking to two men who kept trying to duck around the guards. Something about them seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place their faces. Fans, maybe, if they’d snuck in? A little weird, but Reggie wouldn’t judge. He shrugged and left.

He paused before crossing the street, passing out t-shirts to a couple of cute girls waiting in line. As he walked away, he turned his face up to the smoggy sky. The night smelled like urine and gasoline, and the breeze was warm, but it was a night full of possibility nonetheless.

Maybe Reggie was hanging out with Luke too much. That did sound like something he’d say. Or write, in a song.

Then again, how could he hang out with his super awesome bandmates too much, especially when it landed them _this_ gig? He waited for his hot dog with a smile on his face, bouncing with excitement.

“You look happy,” somebody said. Reggie turned to see an unfamiliar man in a suit watching him, an amused smile on his face.

“I am,” Reggie said. “My band’s playing the Orpheum tonight. We’re Sunset Curve.”

“I’ll tell my friends,” the man said. Reggie laughed, because that was almost what he’d been about to say. “The rest of your band isn’t with you?”

“They had a last check to do,” Reggie explained. He accepted his hot dog and started applying condiments. “They’re going to meet up with me.”

“Here,” the man said. He offered Reggie a handful of cash. “On me, for your bandmates. You should have a meal together. Last moment before your lives change, right?”

Reggie tried to turn him down politely, but the man insisted.

“Please,” he said. “I had someone support me when I was first starting out in show business. It’s only fair I pass it along however I can.”

Reggie wasn’t going to argue with a nice thought like that. This guy seemed really cool.

“It’s just the two,” he said, making sure the man didn’t give him any more money than necessary. “Bobby doesn’t want one.”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“Of course,” he said, paying the street dog vendor enough for two hot dogs and nodding to Reggie. “Have a wonderful evening, Reginald.”

Reggie couldn’t remember if he’d introduced himself to the man, but knowing him he had and he’d just forgotten. He shrugged, awkwardly juggling the three hot dogs as he made sure Luke and Alex’s had their usual favourite condiments before hurrying back to the Orpheum. Cold street dogs weren’t exactly anyone’s favourite food.

Caleb smiled as he sensed Willie approaching him.

“Why?” the boy asked softly.

“I could have one sad middle-aged man who’s signed his soul over to me, and a powerful ghost and another sad man who both know better than to ever get near me,” Caleb said. “Or I could have three powerful ghosts indebted to me for their reunion, bound to me by whatever Ava’s precious little device is, and therefore ripe for the plucking. Wouldn’t you like to have Alex by your side forever?”

“Not if you’re on his other side,” Willie said.

“Oh, William,” Caleb said, finally looking at the boy. “I will never understand where this sudden defiance comes from. Some clueless musicians show up, and suddenly you think you have a backbone? Weren’t you enjoying the afterlife before?”

“I didn’t know there were better options out there,” Willie said. Caleb rolled his eyes. Gone were the days when Willie would apologise to him, apparently. That needed to be fixed, and soon, but for now he’d wait. One project at a time.

“If you think that little girl, Julie, can save you, you should think twice,” Caleb said. “Whatever has let her see you, touch you – it comes from Ava’s device. Which means, since we all travelled together, it’s done the same for me. There are no safe harbours in this little war, and she’s made it a war. I know she wants to steal you away from me.”

He took a sudden step into Willie’s space, relishing the boy’s flinch.

“I don’t relinquish what’s mine, William,” Caleb said. “Even if it disappoints me. Make sure your new friends know that.”

He would have liked to teleport away for dramatic effect, but in his weakened state he was left with the only option being a stately walk.

Julie and Flynn didn’t have time to look for Willie; Reggie grabbed their shoulders shortly after they realised the other ghost was gone, looking shaken.

“It’s Ava,” he said. “It’s Ava and I’m going out alone and a couple security guards just figured out adult Luke and Alex aren’t supposed to be in here!”

Sure enough, there was a struggle behind them. Julie tried to look as though she’d never met the two men in her life. The last thing they needed was to get kicked out right now.

“Flynn, can you go after Reggie? Alive Reggie,” Julie said.

“And do what?” Flynn asked.

Julie looked at her Reggie, the one who’d helped her get back to music, who’d played onstage with her so many times, who’d been with her ever since they woke up in this new timeline. He looked panicked and indecisive.

“Don’t let him eat that hot dog,” Julie said in a whisper.

“Jules…” Flynn said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Reggie said. Julie started to protest, and he touched her arm gently. She fell silent, overwhelmed with deja vu. Why did these ghost boys keep choosing her over safety? “Seriously, Julie. Let’s just go home.”

Flynn looked between them, clearly worried. Reggie smiled timidly at her, sliding his hand down to meet her hand and giving it a squeeze. Julie looked back at the side door. It was just swinging shut behind Reggie’s living self.

“Ok,” she said. “It’s your choice.”

“So what do we do about them?” Flynn asked, nodding at the seventeen-year-old versions of Luke and Alex who were standing by the drumset, talking to Ava.

“Nothing,” said a new voice. Julie barely bit back a shriek as she turned to see Ava, another Ava because that was totally fair, standing behind them.

“Why are there two of you?” Flynn snapped.

“Three, actually,” Ava said. “The original 1995 me is around somewhere. Anyway, she’s here for the initial change. I’m the one who you met. Now, pay attention.” She gripped Julie’s shoulder and spun her around, pointing at Luke and Alex. Julie shook off her grip angrily.

“Don’t touch me!” Julie snapped.

“Whatever. Look. You go up there, say… really anything at all to them, the slightest excuse, and I will back off. I was planning on this, always, trying to get you to change things. I leave them alone, Luke and Alex go get street dogs, the rest is literally history. Or you stay here, if you’re serious about letting them go. Luke and Alex survive.”

“Fine,” Julie said. “So we stay here. Where’s Caleb?”

Ava’s face went perfectly blank. Her jaw tensed, then relaxed.

“Good question,” she hissed, turning and marching for the side door. Julie, Flynn, and Reggie scrambled after her, not about to let her out of their sight.

Just as she was about to step through, the door swung open and a living Reggie bounded through Ava, three hot dogs cradled in his arms.

“Sorry!” he called as he barely dodged Julie and Flynn. Julie’s Reggie had to jump out of the way to avoid being walked through by his own past self.

“No,” Julie said. “No, wait!”

She was stopped by a hand on her arm, and she looked up into the grim face of an Orpheum security guard.

“Have you two girls got backstage passes?” she asked.

“Totally!” Julie said with a smile. “I actually – I think I left mine with my friend. With Reggie! He’s my friend. I need to go get it from him…”

Julie glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Reggie, Alex, and Luke click their hot dogs together like they were making a toast. The earlier version of Ava was nowhere to be seen.

“Jules,” Flynn said quietly. “Luke and Alex. The adults.”

She pointed a shaking finger past the Orpheum security guard, to where Luke and Alex had been until a few moments ago.

“They’re gone,” Reggie said. “They – they never existed.”

“I’m waiting,” the security guard said.

“We’ll show ourselves out,” Julie said. She shook herself free of the guard’s grip, pretending her eyes weren’t blurry with tears. With one hand holding Flynn’s hand and one in Reggie’s, they left the Orpheum.

As they stepped out, Willie ran up to them.

“It’s Caleb! He –“

Willie paused and looked at everyone’s faces.

“I was too late,” he said.

“They’ll be ghosts again,” Julie offered. It was kind of a weak consolation at the moment.

“Yeah,” Willie said. He looked at the stage door. Julie wondered if he was remembering what it was like to see the band actually sweating onstage, so obviously alive.

Willie turned his back to the others, letting out a short scream into the night sky. The he just stood still, arms wrapped around himself, looking down.

“Hey,” Julie said, gently tugging at his elbow. Willie let her pull him around and into a hug. “I know.”

Flynn and Reggie piled into the hug, and after a few seconds of the group hug Willie finally relaxed and wrapped his arms around them.

“They’ll be back when we go home,” he said.

Julie squeezed tighter in response.

“You’re welcome,” Caleb said.

Julie and her friends jumped apart, and Julie did her best to slip in front of Willie. No way was he getting to another one of her friends, certainly not tonight.

“You killed them,” Julie said.

“Wait, _you_ killed them?” Ava snarled. Julie hadn’t noticed her leave the Orpheum, but at this point Ava was the least of their worries. Weirdly, she had been an afterthought ever since they time travelled.

“Oh, please, Ava, your little experiment would never have worked. The power of love? Nobody loves their friend from high school enough to commit suicide. Nobody _really_ loves anybody enough for that. And as for you children…” Caleb looked them over with a smug grin. “As I said to William earlier, now you owe me. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t want it,” he said, holding up a hand as Julie started to argue. “Your world has been set right and you have me to thank. Some debts aren’t just on the honour system.”

“Except you won’t remember,” Flynn challenged him. “You didn’t remember before. I bet Julie and the guys remembered Luke and Alex because they love them, and you pretty obviously don’t love anything.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Caleb laughed, unconcerned with the icy glares surrounding him. “Look, little girl, here’s the truth. _I_ changed things. So _I_ will remember. We all will, since we’re all here, and none of you will have the ability to refuse when I come to collect.”

“Collect what? What do you want?” Julie asked.

“I’m still trying to decide,” Caleb said. “I have so many good options ahead of me, and you, my dear, hold the keys to most of them. I need to make my request a good one. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know.”

He looked at Ava.

“I think we’re about done here,” he said. “Now can we go home?”

Ava scowled, but pulled out her time travel sphere. Then she frowned, and shook it.

“Caleb,” she said in a voice so even and calm Julie _knew_ they were in trouble. “You _broke_ my _Instrument_.”

“Instrument?” Reggie asked, but neither of the older ghosts was paying enough attention to clarify.

“I broke it? It’s your silly little device!” Caleb snapped. “Shouldn’t you know how to fix it?”

“That’s not – it runs on love, all right? Why do you think almost nobody who wants to use it can? People who want to assert that kind of dominance over time don’t generally love things enough.”

“Wait, hang on, are you saying you do?” Julie asked, struck by the absurdity of her statement. There was no way a woman who treated actual people as stories and lab experiments could power something with her love.

“I love the world,” Ava said coldly. “Is it my fault it doesn’t love me back?”

Reggie sputtered and nodded.

“At this point, yeah!” he said. Julie could only point to him for emphasis.

“You said it malfunctioned when it dropped us off so far from the Orpheum,” Caleb said. “Obviously your version of love isn’t enough anymore.” He reached out, trying to take it from Ava, and she pulled her hand back.

“What, like yours is? You only love yourself, if that,” Ava said. She looked up at Julie and her friends. “I suppose it has to be one of you.”

“What’s the catch?” Flynn asked. “I mean, you have to have considered we’d just take it and leave you two demons here.”

“We’d appear in the future anyway,” Ava said. “Anybody going back means time resets completely.” She wiggled the device in front of them like she was trying to tempt a cat into playing.

“I still want to know more,” Julie said. “I’m not touching that until we know the details. Why can Flynn and I see Reggie and Willie? And touch both of them?”

“Caleb said it connected us,” Willie said.

“Again, powered by love,” Ava said. “I really can’t be more explicit than this. It’s an artificial version of the connection Julie shares with her band, and yes, that does mean you’re connected to that sorry sack of glitter who calls himself a ghost. On the bright side, now you’ll always know when Caleb’s around because he can’t be invisible to you. Will you please just reset the timeline? I don’t want to know what overstaying our temporal welcome will do to my Instrument.”

“I still really want to know why you call it that,” Reggie said in a stage whisper. Ava rolled her eyes, looking positively murderous.

“Fine,” she said, tossing it at Julie. Julie fumbled to catch it. As soon as it touched her hands, it started to hum, low and heavy, and she nearly dropped it again.

“Think of home,” Ava said.

 _Joke’s on her_ , Julie thought. She’d been thinking of home since all this began.

And then she was there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm. So sorry.  
> Like the entire rest of this, it's a bittersweet way to fix things. Moral quandaries. There's going to be a little bit of sadness left next chapter just so we can establish that the kids are processing all this, but it's all just wrap-up and a chance to breathe and it's mostly about being glad that everybody has their loved ones back.  
> Also re: how the time travel works, I reserve the right to make things up and if they won't tell me in canon how Julie's powers work I reserve the right to assume everything is a variation on "power of love". It's my fanfiction, I do what I want, and what I want is to talk about how much everybody loves each other.  
> One last chapter in this one, full of reunions, hugs, and also a reprise of "Home Is Where My Horse Is," and then it's done. Except for the sequel, which you may have guessed will deal with the fallout of this fic, including Caleb collecting on his debt, Ava's broken device, and the kids healing from this frankly traumatic experience I have put them through. Less Au-y goodness in that one, probably, but still chock-full of "what if" situations. You'll see what I mean when we get there.  
> Thank you to everybody who's been reading and commenting and all the other things you've been doing to support this fic. When I first started this and I had like eleven comments on here I texted my friends like "this is the wildest moment of my life" and now??? We're here??? I hope I can continue to deliver what you're looking for and provide that good content for all the unusual friend combinations.


	16. I'm Loving Every Minute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot to unpack and deal with, but there's been a convenient jump ahead to the weekend and Caleb is Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Chapter, so Julie and her friends can finally bask in the glow of a fully stocked found family. Also, Luke has no clue why everybody is acting so incredibly weird, and it's kind of freaking him out.

Julie woke up in her bed at home.

“Ok. If all of that was a dream…” Julie didn’t know what she’d do, really.

“Julie!” Reggie poofed into her bedroom, realised she was barely out of bed, and poofed out. He poked his hand through the door and waved a second later. Julie laughed and pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajama top.

“Please tell me they’re back,” she said, opening the door.

Reggie’s smile told her everything she needed to know before he ever said yes. He poofed out a few seconds later, but Julie couldn’t blame him. If she had ghost teleportation powers right now she’d be using them too.

Julie ran down the stairs only to double back when her phone started to ring. She snatched it up from her bedside and took the stairs two at a time as she looked at the ID. It was Flynn.

“Flynn?” Julie said.

“Ok, did I just have the weirdest dream in the world, or did some creepy ghost lady make me forget about half of your band and then we all time-travelled? And I think I met Alex’s boyfriend? Jules, if I’m going crazy you have to be nice to me because I’m really freaked out.”

A laugh punched its way out of Julie’s chest, full of relief and love. She waved at her dad but didn't stop on her way out the door.

“You’re right, Flynn. It happened.”

“Oh, good,” Flynn said. Then, “Oh, _no._ ”

Julie laughed again, pausing halfway to the studio to cover her mouth. She felt a little worried she might cry.

“Reggie says the guys are back,” she said. “You wanna come over and watch rehearsal?” Her eyes widened. “Wait, what day is it?”

“Saturday,” Flynn said before Julie could even check. “Also, that means we missed a day. Should we be worried about this? Honestly, after time travel, it’s hard to worry about maybe missing a math test.”

Julie spared a moment of worry, but her dad hadn’t stopped her as she left the house, which she imagined would have happened if he remembered her being gone.

“I think we’re ok,” Julie said. “Though… we _might_ have to put in some extra study.”

“Ugh,” Flynn said. “Now I really am sad. Ok, I’m coming over. Don’t do anything super cool without me.”

“I’m hoping things stay pretty normal for a while,” Julie said. “See you, Flynn.” She hung up and paused outside the studio, suddenly afraid.

“We’re back home, Mom,” she said softly, looking up at the sky. “Is it bad that I’m happy?”

She could hear Reggie shouting something, joyful even though it was muffled.

“I was ready to let them go, I think,” Julie said. “I mean, they could have lived for so many years. And if we saved Reggie, there’d be so much more time for them to be a band together. But he picked me. Like Luke did after the Orpheum.”

She took a shaky breath.

“And I’m so glad I have my band back, and I don’t know if it’s selfish,” she admitted. “But if we love each other, and we make music together, that’s what matters, right?”

There wasn’t an answer, of course. Julie took a breath and reached out for the door. Her phone buzzed.

 _Found this on the bus_ , read Flynn’s text. _Think it’s for you?_

Somebody had drawn on the back of a bus seat, just a little tag: _Love each other_. There was a spiky stylised flower where the ‘o’ in love should be. A dahlia.

“I’ll take it,” Julie said with a smile. She texted Flynn back with, _Thanks Flynn,_ and then a _hurry up._

Julie opened the studio doors. Before the guys could even say hello, Julie was launching herself at them, wrapping her arms around Luke and Alex as tightly as she could manage.

“Is something going on that we missed?” Luke asked, patting Julie awkwardly on the shoulder. “Is Band Group Hug Day a new holiday? Reggie, tell me you didn’t make up another new holiday.”

“I just really love you guys,” Julie said.

“Ok,” Alex said. Julie could feel him looking at Luke over her, shaking his head. She laughed and pulled back. Alex and Luke were both staring at her expectantly. Reggie was right behind them, bouncing on his feet.

“Ok, Reggie, you know want to get in here,” Julie said, and laughed as Reggie darted in to start a new group hug.

“Seriously, what is going on with you two?” Alex asked.

“Don’t fight the love, Alex,” Reggie said. “You’ll just make it weird.”

“No, I’m pretty sure now you’re the one making it weird,” Alex said.

“Alex?”

Julie nearly tore herself from her band’s grips to see Willie standing there, staring at them with a small smile on his face.

“Willie, hey – uh. Julie, I don’t know if you can see him…”

“I can see him,” Julie said, grinning broadly.

“Did we know she could do that?” Luke asked Reggie quietly.

“We’ll tell you later,” Reggie said. He glanced at Julie, who gave him a rueful smile. She didn’t want to keep the truth from Luke and Alex, but she also didn’t want to go over everything right now. It could keep for a little while.

“Wait, who’s we?” Luke asked.

“Are you all right? Willie, you shouldn’t be here, what if Caleb finds out?” Alex asked. Julie stiffened. It would be even worse than Alex knew, if Caleb got hold of Willie now.

Willie shook his head slowly.

“It’s – I had to see if…” He paused and laughed. “Nobody’s actually seen Caleb since the night you played the Orpheum.”

“Wait, what?” Julie blurted. Willie looked over at her and grinned.

“It was why I… why I came. To tell you that.”

He meant it was why he’d come over back when the whole thing began. Julie looked around at her friends, feeling hopeful.

Caleb was probably out there somewhere – her luck didn’t seem to be good enough that Caleb would reset the timeline to one where he just vanished. But whatever plan he’d had before the world changed would have to be adjusted now, so hopefully they’d have time and space to breathe.

“Then it’s safe for you to stick around?” Julie suggested. “Watch rehearsal?”

Alex stared at her. She winked at him, and he ducked his head. Julie was pretty sure if ghosts could blush he would.

“Yeah! I mean…” Willie glanced at Alex awkwardly. “If you’re ok with that?”

“Definitely! Yes!” Alex blurted before Willie had quite finished. “I – I’d like that.”

Julie caught Reggie’s eye. He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Wait, you wanna rehearse now?” Luke asked.

“What, are you disappointed?”

“You – I – What happened to ‘I need to eat breakfast, Luke’ and ‘I have to balance my life a little, Luke’ and – and you’re still wearing your pajamas!”

Julie couldn’t resist. “So… you don’t want to rehearse?”

Luke gaped at her as the other ghosts laughed.

Taking pity on him, she stepped closer and took his hand.

“I’m just… really glad I have you in my life,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, me too,” Luke said.

Julie had one more thing to torment him with though, and she’d been promising herself she’d do it if they ever got home. She stepped away.

“And I think we should do ‘Home Is Where Your Horse Is,’” she announced.

“Yes!” Reggie said with a two-handed finger gun. Julie grinned smugly as she sat at the piano.

“What – no. What? We’re not doing it,” Luke protested.

Reggie pouted. Julie crossed her arms, levelling her best ‘how-dare-you’ glare at Luke.

“All right, fine, but we’re rearranging it,” Luke said. “ _Then_ will you guys tell us what’s really going on?”

Julie leaned over the piano to give Reggie a fist bump as Willie sat cross-legged on the couch. Alex was laughing as he got ready to play.

“You know, Luke, whatever’s happening here, I think I’m enjoying it,” he said. Julie winked at Alex, making sure it was clearly visible to Luke. He threw up his hands, and everyone else burst into laughter.

“I’m here!” Flynn called, bursting into the garage. “Also, you’re definitely going to have to tell your dad about the guys again because that is another thing that did not stick. I think he might be a little worried about me actually.”

“Again?” Alex asked.

“Let’s play a little,” Julie said. Even telling her dad about the guys could wait; he’d let them be as long as there was music in the studio. She smiled as Flynn sat next to Willie, throwing her arm around him to the shock and awe of Luke and Alex. “Then we have a story to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's that.  
> As I said there will be a sequel (or actually three, it's looking like, because my brain said "what if Carrie had a time travel adventure" and now I have to deal with that, and as I plotted the sequel I discovered there were two different stories in there - I have a problem maybe) and I want to make a few oneshots and things exploring different scenes in between the main story as well as things that could have happened (think universe swap, Julie and Reggie from the changed timeline meet ghost Alex and Luke, that kind of thing). So I'll be living in this for a while I think.  
> I don't know when exactly I'll get the next one up - its less about character beats and more about cunning plans and action which is. not my strong suit. But I should have the first chapter up by the end of the week since I know what I want to do! (Also, any promises I may have made about time travel or alternate universe info in the next fic actually apply to the one after. Again. I have a problem.)  
> I do have a Tumblr, squirrelno2 just like here, so if you want to ask me questions or get updates about my progress on fic planning or whatever that would be a good place to go. I'm fairly inconsistent in posting but I plan on at least talking about where I'm at writing wise in case anybody is curious. Just be aware that on here, I'm in teacher mode, and on Tumblr I don't censor myself the same way. There's nothing truly NSFW and nothing I wouldn't have posted as a teenager, but since I am a teacher and have no way of knowing if one of you is my student, this is my disclaimer.


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